Dia de los Muertos
by notmanos
Summary: Post X2: Marcus Scorpion asks Logan for help infiltrating what seems to be a mutant killing ground but they get more than they bargained for.
1. Part 1

Disclaimer:The character of Logan is owned by 20th Century Fox and Marvel Comics. No copyright infringement intended. 

N.B.: Takes place shortly after the "X2" movie, and "Orpheus Ascending". 

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Dia de los Muertos 

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1 

    He should have known stopping was the worst thing he could actually do. 

Logan knew he was okay if he just kept moving - there was something about momentum and velocity that helped blur the lines, and keep him from thinking. He knew thinking at this point and in this time was not a good thing for him to do, and if he did it too often he would become a self-pitying wreck, and he didn't want to do that. It would be okay once the self-pity turned to rage, as it inevitably did, but he didn't want to waste time in that bleak void of depression, waiting for it to transmogrify into something he could use. 

Man, he needed to get some sleep. 

But that was yet another thing he really didn't want to do. This begged the question what the fuck he did want to do, but he didn't know that either. All he knew was not this - something other than this. It was times like these he wished Bob was back, and he knew then that he must have been in real deep shit. But Bob could make it all go away with just a word, a gesture, a thought. He could change reality ... or put him in a better one. 

Oh fuck, that was a coward's thinking. Logan instantly hated himself, and seriously considered stabbing his own hand with a fork. But he'd just break the fork if he didn't aim exactly between the bones of his hand. 

It was ten to midnight, and he figured by the smell that he was downwind of Pittsburgh, so still in Pennsylvania somewhere. He was in a shitty little town that was trying to be a city, but mostly just had urban blight to show for it. He thought a stop for some food might be a good idea - he was hungry, and by his own recollection, the last time he ate was some time yesterday, and that was just a stick of beef jerky he bought at a gas station mini-mart while waiting for the tank to fill up. It had been pretty bad jerky too. 

But sitting here in the torn vinyl booth, trying to discern the patterns in the stains on the formica table top and trying to ignore how the smell of overcooked grease and burnt meat was awfully close to the scent of the cologne the guy at the counter was wearing, he realized he just had an overwhelming physical need to eat; he really wasn't hungry. He didn't actually want to be here. But his stomach wasn't going to knock it off until he got more in it than beer - then maybe he could go get a beer. That sounded good; it always did. 

The waitress, a slightly haggard looking Korean woman who appeared as tired as he felt, brought over his cheeseburger and fries, and he grunted a thanks as he eyed it warily. He really didn't want to eat this, and its somewhat sad appearance didn't help. He had no idea a burger could look depressed, yet this one looked like it had been sobbing in the back before someone mercifully bludgeoned it and threw it on a plate. 

Oh, what the hell. He picked up the pitiful looking thing and bit into it, chewing mechanically and ignoring the fact that it was slightly overcooked, and someone really should have changed the grease. It was fuel, and that was all that mattered - who cared how it tasted? 

It was actually quiet in here, and that was good. No noises save for the sizzle of grease and the clattering of dishes in the kitchen, the burble of the coffee maker, and the ticking of the blue neon limned clock on the wall. A reasonably rare diner (not fast food joint) open this late in this part of the State, the only customers here were himself; the guy at the end of the counter who smelled not only of bad cologne, but suspiciously of doughnuts (bakery worker); and a drunk guy in the end booth who was partially passed out on the table next to his cup of coffee. This place was a magnet for losers, drawing them in like moths to a porch light, and that's probably why he felt so at home here. 

The windows were fairly dirty, and the place had yellow lighting as dingy as an old photograph, so it was almost impossible to see outside, save for an occasional flash of headlights penetrating the gloom. Attempting to glance out, he saw his own reflection, and wondered briefly why he found it startling. He looked the same as he always did - as he must have looked for more years than he could remember. Maybe that was the problem. 

Or maybe it was just his imagination; for a second he thought he looked ... tired. Not tired as in needing sleep, although surely he did.  Tired as in ... used up. He felt spent in some way that was hard to quantify; weary. 

Shit, it was too late to be worried about a pity party, wasn't it? He was depressed. Right; as soon as he was done with his burger, it was fork jabbing time. 

He wondered if he should just stand up and announce he'd saved the world - a couple times, in fact - for the sheer sadomasochist glee of absolutely no one giving a fuck. Even if they actually believed him - well, maybe the drunk guy would -they wouldn't give a shit. For some reason, that struck him as really funny. 

Logan was just wondering where the mustard was when trouble came in. 

It didn't matter that he had his back to the door and didn't turn to look; he was developing a real sixth sense about shit hitting the fan, for all the good it did him. And these guys were reeking of nervous sweat and meth and cordite - he knew what they were doing here even before one of them shouted, "Give me the money, bitch!" 

He dropped the rest of his burger on the plate and rubbed his temple, even though he knew he couldn't have a headache. He was not getting involved in this. He was tired of saving people - and for what, exactly?It wasn't like they were grateful, or even deserved it half the time. 

One of the robbers - kids, actually; they probably weren't older than nineteen - jumped over the front counter as his skinny friend turned his gun - a piece of shit "Saturday Night Special" - towards the customers ( him and the bakery guy - drunk guy was now snoring ) and snapped, "Okay dirtbags, your wallets." 

The kid aimed the gun right in his face, perhaps because he was closest. 

He looked up at him wearily, and said, "Get that out of my face, kid. You don't wanna piss me off." 

It was a kid too. He and his friend were wearing similar navy hooded sweatshirts, hoods pulled tight around their pale, pimply faces, not hiding them more than highlighting their somewhat unpleasant features and glassy eyes with blown pupils; they were so perfectly bloodshot they almost looked red. The kid sneered down at him, and kept the stubby barrel in his face. It smelled like it had been fired recently. "Cough it up, old man." 

"Old man?" Now that hurt. 

He still had no intention of doing anything, but then the one behind the counter grabbed the waitress by the hair and threw her towards the till. "Hey!" He shouted, standing up. A gun in his face he could make himself live with - sitting by while someone else got hurt he couldn't do. 

The kid waved the barrel menacingly, nearly hitting his nose. "Hey fuck, you don't move until - " 

He was cut short as Logan ripped the gun from his hand, and gave him a sharp upper cut to the jaw. He didn't dare unleash his full strength on this kid, as he was speed addict skinny, a bag of bones held together by parchment thin flesh - he could not only have broken his jaw, but shattered it into a million tiny fragments. The kid still flew back as if he shot him, falling among the stools at the counter. 

"Motherfucker!" His friend behind the counter shouted, aiming his gun at him and firing. 

The waitress screamed as the bullet hit Logan dead center in the chest - it was almost like a sledgehammer to the breastbone, but not quite, and only made him take a step back. He looked down at the neat little pencil hole in his white t-shirt, now leaking a little crimson, and looked at the boy behind the counter, scowling at him. "That's done it." He snapped, as he launched himself over the counter. 

Logan tossed the other kid's gun away, but must have done it too hard, as he heard a window shatter a split second before the kid fired again. Logan was aware of the bullet whistling past his ear, but before he could get off a third shot, Logan had torn the gun from his hand and tossed it aside, but this time he aimed for a booth. 

Logan grabbed the kid by the collar and picked him up off his feet, shaking him like a rag doll. "You have ruined my shirt, and ruined my evening, and they were both pretty shitty to begin with!" The kid's eyes were an odd pale brown, like toasted granola, and seemed unable - or unwilling - to focus on him.  Not sure what else to do with the asshole - except throw him around like a chew toy - he smashed his forehead down against his, knocking him cold. He dropped him to the floor off to the side, so he'd be out of the way. 

He found the waitress - whose name tag read Lin - staring at him in utter disbelief.  "You've been shot," she said, in case he had missed that. "Shouldn't you sit down ... or something?" 

As if it had just been waiting for its moment, the muscular contractions of the healing process pushed the flattened bullet out of the hole in his chest and shirt, and it hit the floor with a noise like a fallen penny. She gaped at it in almost comical shock. "No, I'm good," he told her, jumping back over the counter. 

He knew the cook had already called the cops, so his dinner was probably over. Logan dug out his wallet and threw down a twenty, figuring it covered the meal and a tip. "Sorry about the window," he said, as he turned to go. 

He could feel them staring at him all the way out the door. 

2 

    Even though it was a seedy, run down  bar, he made sure to shrug on an overshirt and keep it buttoned up, so no one could see the bullet hole and the blood stain. The fact that they were both small probably didn't matter as much as the fact that they were both still there. Small as it was, people just didn't usually walk around after shit like that. 

He sat in the farthest, darkest booth, nursing his beer, the cheeseburger sitting in his stomach like a ball of lead. He knew he shouldn't have eaten it. Unlike the diner, this place was packed, but again it was almost all men. There were exactly four women among maybe thirty men - two were on dates of some kind, one had been picked up, and the fourth was a career drinker who'd happily accept any drink a man would buy for her, but blow them off if they tried to talk to her. God, they were all rather sad people - another loser magnet joint. He wondered if another couple of shitheads would try and rob this joint. 

Actually, he didn't think so. Not only was it crowded, but the bartender was a huge Latino guy who looked like he'd kick your ass if you looked at him funny - half bartender, half bouncer. 

It was noisier here, with the constant murmur of voices and clunk of glasses against wooden tables covering up the background rattle of middle of the road pop music playing from somewhere ( wasn't like there was a jukebox ). He had just shrugged off his jacket, tired of sweating but unable to take off his overshirt until he bought a replacement t-shirt, when a man said, "I guess I'll always be able to find you by the trail of the dead." 

Logan glanced up at the muscular black man wearing pitch black welding goggle type glasses, and said, "I didn't kill anyone tonight." 

Marcus smirked and slid into the other side of the booth, folding his black leather gloved hands together on top of the scarred table. "No, but you shot some craps with a couple of scuzzbags, right? So how ya doin', Fuzzy?" 

Logan scowled at him. "Why aren't you in Baltimore?" 

"Man, have you lost the plot. I just got back from Latvia - I haven't been home for about a month." 

"Latvia? What the fuck were you doing in Latvia?" 

"Increasing its black population to one," he replied, giving him a sarcastic, toothy grin. "Actually, if I tell you, I'll have to kill you." 

"You mean try to kill me." 

"Ha! So depressed, but still full of yourself." 

"I am not depressed." 

"Of course not. And I ain't the hottest guy in this joint either." 

Logan shook his head and looked away, trying not to smile. He really did want to be alone, but of all the possible people that might track him down, Marc was probably the best one. He wasn't judgmental, and didn't require a lot in explanations.  "You look like the world's only black Nazi." 

He did too - with a long black leather coat to match his gloves and biker boots, black jeans and a tight black t-shirt, he looked like a member of the SS on casual day. He'd shaved his head again, so he had a skinhead thing going for him as well, and a neatly trimmed, small mustache and goatee combo that looked decidedly devilish ( surely that was on purpose ). The small gold scorpion dangling from his right ear - worn along with a topaz stud and a silver ear cuff - made him slightly more flamboyant than your average fascist. 

Marcus chuckled, and reached across the table to grab his beer. He could have grabbed it back from him, but he didn't actually care; there was only dregs in the mug anyways. "Ya vole, mein furry friend." He gulped down the rest of his beer, and then asked, "So what's goin' on? I rang Xavier's to see if you were crashin' there, and Summers answered the phone and completely forgot to hate me.  He sounded as expressive as Steven Wright. So what's happened exactly?" 

"Jean died." 

"Yeah, right." He then set the mug down with a clunk, and his expression faltered as he realized Logan was serious. "Holy shit. Oh man, I'm sorry." 

"We all are." But some more than others. He should have stayed around, he supposed, but he couldn't take the atmosphere anymore, or the memories. Scott moping around, being alternately withdrawn and sullen, and then sometimes Logan would swear he could still smell Jean in the halls - not that he ever mentioned that to anyone. And then there was the whole Xavier thing. 

So Xavier knew who most likely was responsible for his adamantium and never said a word, huh? What the fuck else had he not bothered to tell him?Not specifically a lie, but a sin of omission that he didn't appreciate, no matter the motive behind it. Xavier had tried to talk to him about it, but Logan found he was way to angry to talk about it, or be in the same room alone with him, and at least Xavier picked that up and backed off. They would need to have "the talk", and soon, but he wasn't ready for it yet. he wasn't sure when he would be. 

"You wanna tell me what happened, or just leave it at that?" 

That's what he liked about Marcus - he wasn't going to demand it.  Logan shook his head. "Leave it, okay?" 

He nodded sympathetically. "Yeah, sure. Is this at all related to that weird "Scanners" head almost exploding shit that happened a couple weeks ago?" 

"You felt that?" 

"Fuck yeah I felt that. And what a shitty time too - I was picking someone up." 

"In Latvia?" 

"No, I was in Brussels then." 

"Which was worse?" 

"Oh, it's a tie. Brussels's neater, but so dull it's not worth it. Latvia seems more exotic, but you're more likely to die. From the food if nothing else." 

Logan nodded, and appreciated that Marcus hadn't pointed out he'd completely avoided the question. "So why are ya looking for me?" 

"Why? Come on man, a couple of players like us?We should hit the town, cause trouble, and pick us up the hottest bits of stuff we can find." 

Logan frowned at him and stared, waiting. It wasn't like this was a town worth hitting - unless, of course, he meant with a bomb of some sort. 

Finally Marc relented with a shrug of his hands. "Okay, yeah, I've got an ulterior motive." 

"Everyone does." 

Marc rolled his broad shoulders beneath his leather duster. "True. I was wonderin' if you might want to come on a gig with me." 

"I'm not a merc." 

"It's not that kind of gig; it's more personal." Marcus sat forward, clasping his hands together once more, and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "You know I've been investigatin' military fucks who have been exploiting mutants, right? Well, in Brussels I got my hands on some intell that points me towards a real hot lead, but here's the thing - I can't figure out the military connection. As far as I know, there is none." 

He hated to tell him he had no interest in going after the military fucks anymore, so he didn't. "So what are you sayin'?" 

"Have you ever heard of a place called Santo Marco?" 

Logan was sure the non-sequitur was connected to the topic, although he wasn't sure how at the moment. "Not really. Central America?" 

"Bingo. It's this little piece of land carved out by the oil companies, a sort of stealth country down there, full of American and Canadian workers and the locals who service them." 

"That's risky." 

"With all the political unrest down there? I know - Yankee dogs are always the first ones kidnapped, right? But here's the thing: Santo Marco is surrounded by juntas and death squads - and not one of their workers has ever been grabbed. There's never been a spot of trouble anywhere near Santo Marco." 

"Bullshit." That seemed unreal, especially since Central America had recently started heating up again as a trouble zone. Not that it had ever stopped being so - although the media would have led people to believe that - it was just that it had hit another peak in its cyclical political violence. "So what,is the oil company there in cahoots with the military, fucking around with mutants?" 

Marcus flashed him a brief smile. "Cahoots - I love that word. It could be that, but if so, I haven't found any outside proof of it. But there's strong empirical evidence." 

"Which is?" 

"The whole fuckin' place is the mutant equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle - any mutant that gets within forty klicks of the place is never seen again." 

"That's suspicious." If the cadres or the juntas got them, they'd have left the bodies out to be found as a warning, especially if they knew they had bagged a mutant. They wouldn't leave them to rot in the jungle, undiscovered and unnoticed. "Who's the company down there?" 

"Global Petroleum." 

Logan was glad he wasn't drinking beer at this moment in time, because he never wanted to do a spit take. "Barton Perevil's old company? Aren't they bankrupt?" 

Marcus sat back, and just from the expression on his face, he knew he was looking at him curiously from behind his light protective goggles. "What, you know who the fuck Perevil is? Yeah, GP technically went under, but most of its property was absorbed by another company, Metropolitan Petrochemical Inc.; they still call it GP down there, mainly because they seem to be having a problem translating "petrochemical". How the fuck do you know they went bankrupt? I mean, it was a big scandal in the financial world, but hey, there's a big scandal every five minutes nowadays - who cares? We're all helpless puppets of the military-industrial complex." 

He thought about not telling him, but what the fuck? It sort of reinforced his hypothesis. "Bob put 'em under.  GP had a secret project goin' with the Emir of Rhajan, constructing mutants in a test tube, solely for protecting their investments from other mutants." 

"Holy fuck. And how were you involved in this?" Logan raised an eyebrow at that, and Marc pointed out, "You said Bob sank 'em - so that means you brought him in on that, right? Or was it the other way around?" 

Ah shit. Somehow he had ended up in a conversation he really didn't want to have.  "I met one of their scientists once. When she found out what they were really doin', she got a major case of the liberal guilts and tried to save some marked for death." 

"What happened?" 

At least he hadn't asked how exactly he met her. "They infected her with a designer tracker, meant to kill her slowly and lead them to the last survivors. She blew her own head off instead." 

Marcus had enough good manners to look shocked. "Harsh. But they survived, huh?" 

"One did, yeah." 

"What about the designer mutant project?" 

"It died with Perevil's credit rating ... or so I thought. The program they did have hadn't had much success, though. Apparently it's hard to design mutants to order." He didn't bother to say their "successes" - ranging from five to fourteen - now called Xavier's home, nor did he bother to say that the only survivor of the older project, Alex, was a cop in Alaska. Elena - there was another woman he let die on him. 

"Bob stopped it." 

Logan just nodded, deciding that was close enough. "I don't think it was working out for them financially, especially since their big mutant farm in the Northwest Territories went boom." 

"Boom, huh?" Marcus smiled knowingly. "And I bet you had nothing to do with that." 

"Well, a little. But it was mostly Helga." 

That really made him grin. "That woman has a way with a flamethrower. It's a real turn on." 

"You should see her with a rocket launcher." 

"She is an Amazon without mercy - gotta love that." But he sobered, all good humor fading away, and asked what Logan knew he was going to ask. "Think there's a connection?" 

He realized he was still very weary, and being reminded of Elena hadn't helped matters at all. He just wanted to drink until it meant something, but he knew it never would. He shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I really think it's over. " 

"You think so? Or are you just hoping it is?" 

He glowered at him for that, even though he knew that was a fair comment.  Actually, it was a painfully accurate comment, but he wasn't about to admit it. He just wanted to be left alone to ... to what, feel sorry for himself? Shit - he just couldn't win. "Fuck if I know. But why would they need designer soldiers if the area around Santo Marco's clear? Let's face it - if they had super soldiers, there'd be bloodshed around that place. They'd wipe out the juntas." 

Marc considered that a moment, and then nodded reluctantly. "Yeah. But maybe they're workin' on a different kind of mutant." 

"Or it's something else entirely." 

"Or that. Look, why don't you come home with me - I'll show you the intell I've got, see if you can make anything more about it. Shit, if I'd known you had dealings with GP before, I'd have called you from Latvia." 

"Home? Wait a second - I thought you said you hadn't been home for a month. How can the intell be there?" 

Logan knew he had walked into something when Marcus got a smart ass, shit eating grin on his face. "They got this amazing thing called the internet, grandpa. It lets you send stuff from one place to another without any physical transfer takin' place. They also got these things called talking pictures - heard of those?" 

He crossed his arms over his chest, and glared at him. "This is an elaborate ruse to get into my pants, isn't it?" 

Marcus laughed and shook his head. "Look, white boy, I told you once  - you're too hairy for me. Wax your neck, and we'll talk." 

It was Logan's turn to shake his head and smirk. He had missed Marcus, but he hadn't realized it until now. Unlike some people he could think of, Marcus never hesitated in a fight - he went full on,not at all concerned he might seriously hurt someone: of course he was going to hurt someone, it was a fight for Christ's sake! And then there was the fact that the glands under his fingernails excreted a toxin that was lethal; it took Rogue some time to kill someone - Marcus just needed a second and a good grab.  He briefly wondered if he would have made a difference at Alkali Lake, then mentally chided himself for thinking that way. The past was unalterable, and he knew that the hard way - there was only forward, whether he liked it or not. Time didn't care about you or what you wanted; it was as inexorable as the tide. 

But he had a feeling if Marcus had been there, he never would have had a chance to kill Stryker, because Marcus would have already taken him out. Marcus had made taking out military guys ( and bases ) his fucking hobby - hell, he probably could have come up with a better way in. Of course the fact that the man packed an arsenal that should have rated him as a well armed small country couldn't have hurt either. 

"So why did you want my help?" Logan wondered. "You didn't know about that shit with Global Petroleum." 

Marcus shrugged a single shoulder. "I thought this might be some serious shit, and I could use someone watching my back, someone who could hold up their end of a fight." 

"And?" He couldn't help but feel there was an "and" in there. 

"And I figured I could use the interpreter." When Logan sighed and shook his head, he protested, "Hey, I may be a California boy, but I only know enough Spanish to get by, and it's mostly Spanglish anyways. Besides, in Santo Marco they speak as much Portuguese as Spanish, and the only Portuguese word I know is agua. I need someone fluent in both." 

"What the fuck makes you think I speak Portuguese, nonetheless Spanish?" 

Just by the way his face contorted, Logan knew he had rolled his eyes behind his goggles. "Give me a fucking break - you speak Zulu! If you speak fucking Zulu, of course you can speak Portuguese!" 

"I don't speak it, I just read it." He protested, then paused. "I think ..." 

"Same fucking difference." Marcus started to slide out of his seat. "Come on, let's get going. I was hopin' to get some sleep before takin' off for Santo Marco." 

He sank back against his seat, letting his head loll against it for a moment. There were times he got tired enough that he could honestly feel the weight of his adamantium pressing down on him from the inside; this was one of those times. "Look, Marc, I'd love to help ya and all, but - " 

"I got Jagermeister back home," he interrupted. 

Logan stared at him a moment, then shrugged. "Okay, let's roll." 

Well, it wasn't like he had anything better to do. 


	2. Part 2

3 

    Logan followed Marcus back to Baltimore on his bike, only giving into road hypnosis on the straightaways. There weren't many of those, as Marcus seemed to think this was some kind of chase scene in an action film and kept trying to lose him. If only he knew he could get ahead of him and cut his lame ass off. He considered it, but decided there was still enough traffic that he shouldn't risk it. 

But he was impressed with his wheels. Being a mercenary really must have brought in the dough - he'd never met anyone who drove a Viper before. And it wasn't exactly a pure showroom model either - the engine on it purred like a contented dragon, and it seemed to be able to accelerate at the drop of a dime; he'd must have had the thing custom modified, as well as painted ( it was a deep, gleaming black, like an insect's carapace ). Marcus drove like a fucking maniac, and he figured he'd had that defensive driving class. He wondered if the tires were bulletproof. 

Marcus's neighborhood looked even more seedy and disreputable at night, but the shady characters gathering on the street corner split as soon as his Viper rounded the corner and growled to a stop beside the curb in front of his building. He wondered if he ever had to bother to kick their asses, or just stared at them until they got so freaked out they decided it was in their best interest not to tangle with him. 

Marc still lived in his loft at the top of a converted artist's warehouse, and even though it was one in the morning, it sounded like someone was one in one of the ground floor workspaces, using a ceramic wheel, throwing clay. "So what's your art?" Logan had to ask, as he followed Marc up the cool cement stairs to his place. The interior was all grey concrete and aluminum painted a very fragile white-blue, with soft white indirect lighting; industrial arty. 

"Does death count?" He replied flippantly. 

He knew he was going to say that. 

His loft was very much the same as the last time he saw it - still sparse, still dominated by a killer entertainment system and red leather sofa, but now he'd put up a picture: a Japanese language version movie poster for "Blade Runner", inside a gilded glass frame. "Well, that explains your wardrobe," Logan noted sarcastically, as Marcus turned on a dim floor lamp in the far corner. 

"Can you live with this?" He asked, shucking off his leather jacket. He meant with the nearly non-existent lighting, of course. 

He nodded. "Got better vision than the average mutie." 

"I know, and it's a help." He pushed his goggles up onto his head, and even in the dimness Logan could see they were almost all black, pupils expanded to maximum. His pupils were already larger than normal, being as he could see in infrared, but the fact that he had thin irises that were virtually black anyways always made his eyes seem huge and somehow alien or insectoid, pushing out the whites. He wasn't sure if he could see normally and in infrared, or if he could view them concurrently but not separately - the latter would explain why he preferred the dark, beyond the constantly dilated pupils. 

Marc tossed his duster on the end of the couch, and headed for the refrigerator in his attached kitchenette. When he opened the door. Logan saw that rather than the traditional white light in his fridge, he had a dim red bulb, like you might find in a darkroom. "Go ahead and boot up my laptop. I can get to downloading the info." 

Logan sat down on the sofa, and saw his laptop was indeed sitting in the center of the coffee table, marginally hidden under a copy of Scientific American. He glanced at the cover briefly, assuming the twisted skeins of a triple helix ( as opposed to the normal double ) meant this was about mutations, and then tossed it aside, opening the laptop. He wasn't immediately sure how to boot it up, but he figured it out without the embarrassment of having to ask. 

"Incoming," he said, and tossed a bottle of Jaegermeister his way. Logan caught it easily and twisted off the cap as the screen came to life, glowing with light and showing a background pic of a ... "What the hell is that?" He had to ask, pointing at the laptop. He took a hearty swig of the beer, and good lord did this stuff pack a kick; even he could feel it, if only for a millisecond. 

"What do you think it is?" 

Logan canted his head to the side, just in case the picture was upside down or sideways, but no, it didn't look any better. "It looks like a chicken crossed with an ear." 

"An ear?" he replied, laughing. "How the fuck do you see an ear in that?" Marcus was now over at his stereo, flipping through his CDs. 

"Well, the bones of the eardrums - the anvil, the stirrups. Melted into bronze and given the head of a chicken." It did - a cartoonish stick body of bronze, on what had to be three toed chicken feet, with a sideways U for a tail and two tubule like things growing out of the top of the body ( those were not wings! ), tapering down to a long, straight swan like neck with a chicken beaked head, standing on a pale maroon base. It was one of the ugliest things he'd ever seen - Kuk aside. 

"Wow - you immediately thought of the bones of the ear? I wonder what that means. See, I like to use that picture as a psychological test." The stereo started playing harder edged rock at a low volume ( in deference to his neighbors, or Logan's ears? ), and it sounded remarkably familiar. Bob like, in fact. 

"Tomahawk?" He asked curiously. The name just occurred to him - he didn't know if that was the right name for the band. 

But Marc nodded as he came over and joined him on the couch. "Bob turned me on to them. They're shit hot. Too bad like three people have heard of them." 

He shrugged. "What the fuck is that?" 

As Marcus picked up the laptop and leaned back into his couch, he told him, "It's a public art statue I found at a train station outside Tacoma. I can't remember what it was called, although I think the word rooster was involved. It was just so godawful I had to record it for posterity. I found a couple of good pieces in Latvia and Brussels too. They're just so terrible they're almost beautiful, you know?" 

"So that's your new hobby now? Taking pictures of ugly statuary?" 

"Not just statuary - some things are so hideous or badly conceived, they must be seen to be believed. Remind me to take a picture of you sometime." 

"Ha." 

Marc set his bottle of beer on the arm of the couch, and set to work on the keyboard, his fingers moving at almost lightning speed across the keys. He had his gloves off, although Logan hadn't seen him take them off. It was probably as much a relief to him as taking off his goggles. "Now I hacked this stuff out of a secure area, but I uploaded it to a shell account without decrypting it. And if I run it through another shell I'm sure no one will ever be able to trace the source of - " 

"Marcus?" 

"Yeah?" 

"Shut the fuck up." 

He chuckled, but he did stop his running commentary for the moment. Logan simply enjoyed his beer and watched as Marcus ran the documents he downloaded through a decryption program. They looked more like memos, business missives, than military records of any sort, but that's what boggled Marc's mind, wasn't it? 

"So how'd I do?" Logan finally asked. 

"Huh?" 

"The psychological chicken statue test." 

"I'm not sure. No one's ever said they saw ear bones in it." After a brief pause, he said, "I guess it means you have an odd combination of imagination and analytical pattern recognition. And you have some anatomical knowledge, dude - sure you were never a doctor?" 

"Roughly sure, yeah. But I know how to hurt people." He wasn't proud of that; in fact, he was almost ashamed of it. But it was the way it was. 

Marcus just nodded sagely, accepting that without judgement. "That's why I'm glad you're on my side, man." He then handed him the laptop. "See what you make of these. I'm gonna get changed." 

Logan eyed him dubiously as he stood up. "You don't need to put on somethin' frilly for me." 

He laughed and gave him the finger as he walked off to his bedroom. "In your dreams." 

Logan's eyes started to blur over as he read document after document - there was something about the use of words of "synergy" and "proactive" and "applied strategy management" ( in civilian speak, that meant lying your fucking ass off ) that threatened to induce coma. He was pretty sure that's why they invented the terms, to slowly make people unaware of the antidote brain dead. 

But what he was able to put together was puzzling. There was something about a rich vein of oil being struck beneath a part of Santo Marco known as  Plano da Noite ( plain of night? ), but some unidentified problem causing difficulties with pumping up the petroleum. Then there were some references to "unrest among the native populace" ( Santo Marcans), but that made no sense - as Marcus said, there wasn't a spot of a trouble in the country. Well, that was reported. 

Then, in an email dated two weeks later,there was a reference to the "Project Lacuna " ( now there was an odd name for a project ), and an "incident" with one of their drilling supervisors by the name of Ethan Casey. But there was a dearth of information even in intra-company messages; it was like these guys didn't even trust each other, and he supposed that was the case. 

"So what do you think?" Marc asked, coming back into the room. He'd changed into sweatpants and a pale green tank top, and had gotten rid of his goggles completely. 

"I think these guys are devious shits as a matter of course." 

"Hey, they're not just executives, they're oil company executives - they gotta be slimier than a slug in lard." 

"That's a lovely mental picture," he shot back, but he had to agree with him. 

As he sat back down on the couch and grabbed his beer, he asked, "Do you know what it means?" 

"What?" 

"Lacuna. I thought it was one of those big South American rodents, but I wasn't sure." 

Logan couldn't help but smirk. "A lacuna is a pit or a hole; a hollow or a void. Something empty or blank. It's a little used word - I'm not surprised you didn't know it." 

"So how do you know it?" 

He just stared at him, even though Logan knew logically he should have seen that coming. "I don't know." 

Marcus kindly just shrugged and changed the topic. "So why did I think of an animal when I heard lacuna?" 

He considered making a bad joke, but discarded it since Marcus had let the lacuna thing go. "There's an animal called the vicuna, but it's not a rodent - it's a cousin of the llama." 

Logan could see on his face that he was going to ask him how he knew that, but he quickly decided not, as he knew that answer would be the same as the first. "See, they did that to trip gringos up - change the first two letters. That is so unfair." 

"Hey, we got back at them - we created Taco Bell." 

"Damn straight." He then studied the laptop screen for a minute, and asked, "Anything familiar?" 

Logan shook his head. "To GP? No. Their super soldier thing was called Project Samson, which makes a kind of sense. But "Lacuna"? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" 

"Man, I thought it was a rat. Don't ask me!" 

He ran over the possible meanings in his mind: Project Ditch; Project Hole; Project Blank; Project Hollow. Blank made the most sense in context, yet was perfectly meaningless. "Something happened - something happened while they were trying to tap the vein on the plain of night that made everything go tits up." 

"Plain of night?" 

"Plano da Noite." 

"Oh. I knew it meant plain of something. Night? Weird name for a plain, huh?" 

"That's what I was just thinking." 

They were both quiet as they turned over possible reasons in their mind. "If any oil leaked to the surface the ground would be pitch black, but how could it leak up before they pumped it? And if it did, why would it take them so long to get around to draining it?" Marcus said, thinking aloud. 

"Volcanic rock?" Logan suggested, even though he knew it was a long shot. "Pulverized it would look like black sand." 

He nodded. "Yeah, but ... are there volcanoes in Santo Marco?" 

"You're asking me?" 

Another pause, in which they sipped their beers and hoped that the senseless would suddenly make sense. Of course it didn't - it never did. This was just another situation where the questions outnumbered the available answers. 

"Maybe Pablo Neruda named it," Marcus finally offered. 

"Neruda was from Chile." 

"Well, fuck man, maybe not him specifically - you know what I mean! Someone poetic." After a pause, he added defensively, "I know philosophers, not poets." 

"Oh course. Poets are for pussies; philosophers are for self-important pussies." 

Marcus gave him a sharp elbow in his arm and grabbed his laptop back, while Logan laughed. Yes, it was mean as hell, but it had to be said. "You're just lucky my chick's not here," Marcus said. 

"Or dude." 

"Hey, my chick could be a dude." 

"That was really more information than I needed." 

As he shut down the laptop, he told him, in a serious and almost doleful voice, "I've been lookin' around, but I still haven't found anything more about that "Weapon X" thing. Just that shit I found in Mexico, and that stuff we found in Canada." 

Oh shit. Look took a gulp of liquid courage, and then told him, "Don't bother - it doesn't matter." 

"Of course it fucking matters! It's supposed to be some mutant killing super weapon. I don't care that it may have blown up in someone's face. If it's still out there, we need to know." 

"You don't have to worry about it in anymore." He stared resolutely ahead at the stereo system, its readouts a glowing red and green in the dimness, and heard the singer snarl out, " - the world is my whorehouse, my zoo." Logan recalled all the times in his life when he felt positively insane, and realized that, save for that short time after he was ... after, he never really had been. It would have been kinder if he still was. Otherwise it had just been a convenient excuse for being out of control, and floundering without a functioning moral compass. 

He saw Marcus staring at him out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't turn to look at him - he couldn't. "You and Bob found it? You guys took it out of play?" 

"I'm it." 

"You took it out?" 

"I'm what they were talking about; I'm Weapon X." He got up and stalked away, back towards his kitchenette. He gulped down the rest of his beer and set the empty in the sink, aware that Marc was staring at his back. 

"Holy fuck," he breathed, as if physically stunned. Logan couldn't blame him; when it sank in with him, he didn't want to believe it either. He still didn't want to believe it - but it made perfect sense, didn't it? It didn't just explain the claws either - it explained his extensive knowledge of how to hurt people, right down to the physical detail. Yes, he had anatomical knowledge that could have rivaled Jean's - but only because he used it to destroy any living thing that crossed his path. 

And he had never told her. In fact, he had never told anyone until this moment, never admitted it aloud. 

He wouldn't have blamed Marcus if he exploded at him or kicked him out; hell, he was almost looking forward to it. But after a moment, Marc just closed the laptop and set it back on the coffee table, the silence tense enough that Logan could almost feel it pressing down on him like a weight. "Shit man, if I'd have known that I'd never have worried about it." 

Logan finally turned around and eyed him curiously. "Oh really?" 

"Yeah. Since when do you anything people tell you to do?" He gave him one of his patented shit eating grin, his teeth white in the half light. 

Logan raised an eyebrow at him, and fought hard to repress a smile. "Well, when yer mother asked me to - " 

"Don't you even start a round of dozens with me, asshole," Marcus interrupted, trying not to laugh. "Do I go to the zoo and kick your mother around her pen? No, so lay off." 

Even though he couldn't help but chuckle, he said, "Keep your day job, Shecky." 

Maybe it wasn't always such a bad thing to have friends. 

4 

    He was so cold he couldn't quite breathe. 

Or maybe he just couldn't breathe. His body felt like a dead, frozen slab of beef around him, a cage in which he was imprisoned. He saw the glowing halos of light far above him, but there was light beneath him, an oozing green that reminded him of infection; tainted light without the promise of heat. 

His eyes were having trouble focusing; everything carried its own negative, afterimages worn like auras, save for the people clustered around him - they were just shadows, slightly amorphous and reeking of disinfectant and rubber and something strangely, heavily metallic. 

Smell. If he could smell, he must have breathing ... right? In theory it made sense, but he didn't think sense was any longer in his orbit, if indeed it had ever been. He just wanted to move, to get away - everything in him was screaming to run - but he could barely feel the prison of flesh around him, except as something cold and heavy as marble. He saw something out of the corner of his eye - most things he saw out of the corner of his eye because he couldn't move his head, and he couldn't remember how to move his eyes - it looked like a long needle on the end of something like a silver table leg, and he heard the piercing whine of a bone saw. Was it coming closer? 

Yes, it was - it was nearing him, the sound growing loud, shadows converging, melting into a huge amorphous blob of humanity; a group of people becoming a single mass. He didn't want to believe it, not at first, but adrenaline dumped into his system and he tasted metal in his mouth as his body reacted to what his mind shied away from: they were coming for him. They were coming back with the needles and the saws, and those clamps, the ones that held his peeled back skin so it wouldn't start healing while they tried to work ... no, no not again. 

He tried to force movement, force anything, but he couldn't - someone else controlled his body, or must have, because god knew he didn't. He heard more noises now, a burbling like water, whispered voices like the hisses of angry snakes, and he wondered if he was dead. If he was dead this was hell. Or maybe the whole point of all of this was to make him wish he was dead. 

It was then he saw the light out of the corner of his eye on the right. He knew it was wrong, although he couldn't say how or why; just that it was. It glowed red and white, and grew as it seemed to come into the room, into this torture chamber of oily shadows and ichor green light. It seemed to obliterate everything that came into its path, wipe it away like a stain, and it moved like fire, like a living ball of flame; but it wasn't flame. He was starting to feel the power through his numb body, but not heat - its heat was not what killed. And it did kill - it was too powerful not to. But while he instinctively feared it, he also wanted to reach out to it, embrace it, gladly be consumed by that fire. 

He could almost see something in that tower of flame, a dark shape, like a living shadows deep within its heart. The more he could feel this corrosive, caustic reflective light of its power fall over him, the more he could feel his body, and he knew he would be able to move soon. He'd be able to move, and go towards that light, that flame, dissolve in the glory of it. And while he had never seen such a thing before, it seemed ... familiar somehow ... 

A loud crash woke Logan with a jolt, and he instinctively popped his claws as he sat up and looked around frantically for the thing - 

- ( that light - it was drawing him in, luring him, trying to kill him - ) - 

- that was attacking. 

( Why had it seemed so familiar? ) 

"Hey - watch the upholstery," Marcus snapped, and after a moment, Logan remembered where he was and what was going on. 

Right - he had slept on Marc's couch. From the light bleeding through the still closed blinds, it was obviously morning,and Marcus was standing in his kitchenette, picking up the pan he had dropped on his hardwood floor. "Fuck, man, you have some nightmares, don't you?" He said, retrieving the now slightly dented aluminum sauce pan. He wasn't wearing his goggles, but even though the blinds were closed, he was wearing grey tinted shades. 

He retracted his claws and glanced at the red leather sofa - no, didn't look like he cut it. Score one for him. "Sorry." It was all he could think to say. He dry washed his face, and wondered what the hell that dream had been about. It had all been typical until that fire thing - what was that fire thing? It almost felt real, like something had side slipped into his mind ... 

"You wanna beer?" Marcus asked. 

Logan threw the blanket off him and set his feet on the cool floor, sitting forward and wondering if he should be worried or not. "Maybe in a minute. " He couldn't believe he had volunteered for that - he refused to believe he had. 

He'd stripped down to his boxers and had the rest of his clothes piled up on the floor, his t-shirt on top, which reminded him. "Can I steal one of your shirts?" 

Marc, who had been pulling stuff out of the fridge, glanced back at him curiously. "I guess, as long as you don't touch my good ones. Why? Suddenly have a sense of taste?" 

He scowled at him, and held up his t-shirt to show him the blood stain and bullet hole. "The scumbags last night." 

The look of surprise on Marc's face was priceless. "Fuck me - you were shot? Man. Can I have that?" 

"The shirt? Why?" 

"'Cause, once I get that laundered - and sterilized, of course - I know a club downtown where that shirt will get me so laid." 

Logan studied the shirt for a moment, and asked, "Where downtown is this place?" 

"You want a new shirt, I get that one." 

"You're a blackmailing bastard," he replied, balling it up and throwing it at him. He caught it with one hand, so he didn't have to drop what looked like a bag of chili peppers in his other hand. 

"And you almost punched a hole in my sofa. Fair's fair." 

He grumbled a reply and got up, grabbing his jeans and stalking off towards his bedroom, which was the only way to get to his bathroom. "I will punch a hole in it if you didn't leave any hot water." 

"Ooh, aren't we a morning person?" He shouted after him, with a slightly campy lilt. 

After getting over the general shock of seeing Marc's shower - it was done in blue glass tile, and seemed to have a tub made of blue veined marble ( how much money had this guy made? Jesus fucking Christ, he was almost in Bob's league, wasn't he? ) - he got under the spray and tried to think about his nightmare. What the fuck had that been anyways? And why had he felt so drawn to it - like he was a moth ... no, worse. Moths operated on blind instinct; he felt something tugging at him. Desire and fear; hope and avarice. He wanted to go to that thing - even though he knew it would kill him, because ... because he wanted. He wasn't sure what he wanted, though. That light had something ... what? The more he thought about it, the more it ultimately eluded him - he could feel it slipping through his grasp. He had a feeling that by tomorrow he wouldn't even remember the anomaly in his nightmare, but he felt that it was important that he captured this in his mind. But again, he had nothing to base this on, and it was a desperately lost cause. 

By the time the hot water pounding his back turned cold, he couldn't even remember what color it was. 

He avoided Marc's closet and just pulled a tank top out of his top drawer, and by the time he was dressed and back out in the front room, he was overwhelmed by the smell of his breakfast. It smelled great - eggs and peppers and tomatoes - and the BBC world news was now playing on the big screen television. Marcus was sitting on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, eating his breakfast. "Help yourself, grumpy," he said, pointing towards the stove with his fork. "Hope you can live without coffee." 

"Doesn't do anything for me," he admitted, then asked, "Don't drink coffee?" 

"I do, but only other people's. All I can manage is boiled crap in a cup, so I don't bother." 

"Makes sense - leave it to the professionals." Marcus had left a plate and a fork down on the stove for him, beside the cast iron skillet full of what looked like eggs scrambled with green chilies, stewed tomatoes, and ripped up chunks of tortilla. It smelled better than anything he had had lately, making his stomach growl, and he pretty much just dumped the contents of the pan on the plate. He grabbed a beer ( wow - he had imported Japanese beer too ) before picking up his plate and joining Marcus on the couch. 

Logan couldn't believe how good his first bite of the omelet was: spicy, rich, the eggs as light and fluffy as clouds. Marcus could cook too? What wasn't this guy good at, and why did he have to be a man? "I'm seriously thinkin' about marryin' you," he admitted. It was hard not to wolf the entire plate down. 

"It'd never work. I have to be on top sometimes." 

Once Logan got through choking on his first sip of beer, he saw Marcus giving him that shit eating grin again. "I bet it ain't nothin' like this at Xavier's." 

"You can say that again." They listened to the British reporter with the stunningly soothing voice report on the problems in Kashmir, which for some reason reminded Logan why he was here. "When are we leavin' for Santo Marco?" 

Marcus raised an eyebrow at him. "So you're comin', huh?" 

"Well, if you go down there alone, you'll probably get your fool ass killed." 

He grunted humorously, but accepted that. "I know a guy who'll take us down as far as Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas. The oil company has restricted air space over Santo Marco, so we're gonna have to get a lift in, but that shouldn't be a problem. We can get goin' soon as the news is over." 

"Won't the company restrict access to the borders too? I mean, if the juntas haven't even been able to grab themselves a gringo, they must be locked down pretty tight. Yankees or not, how are we gettin' in? Slice and dice?" 

Marcus frowned at him. "Yeah, that's real slick, Mr. Bond. No - we're employees." 

"Are we?" News to him. 

After taking a drink of his orange juice, he set his glass on the arm of the sofa,and reached into the front pocket of his cargo pants. Marcus pulled out two laminated i.d. badges and handed them to him. "Gotta love the internet." 

They looked authentic - well, as far as Logan could tell. They had the large Metropolitan Petrochemical Inc. logo at the top ( including its French initials PMI, as its main business arm was based in Paris ), and the legend "Employee", with some kind of UPC code underneath. And between the logo and the code on both badges was a small square mugshot - one of him, one of Marc wearing dark glasses - and their names: Logan Hunter, Marcus Hunter. 

"You gave us the same last name?" Logan wondered. 

He nodded. "We're brothers." At Logan's disbelieving stare, he added, "Well, half." 

He wasn't kidding. "And you think they'll buy that?" 

"Oh yeah. Americans are really touchy about the race issue - if someone mentions it, I'll get uptight, and they'll drop it and never mention it again." 

Logan considered that a moment. Logically, he didn't think it had a chance in hell of working - but then again, it was so fucking audacious it actually might. And he knew Marc was a damn good actor when he wanted to be. "Why do I have a feeling you've done something like this before?" Actually, judging from all of this, Marcus had a side job going in industrial espionage. Maybe that's where the big money was. 

He just shrugged, ducking the issue. "Our strongman dad had the happiest pants in the circus. At least my looks take after my mother, Angela Basset. And I guess you take after your mother." He paused to look at him. "A warthog? No, no, I got it - what's the name of that grouchy muppet?" 

"Fuck you," he spat, trying not to laugh. Okay, he had to admit they kind of sounded like brothers. 

"Not unless you buy me dinner first." 

"So what about these UPC codes? What happens when they scan these?" 

"Our employee records pop up." 

"What employee records?" 

"The ones I planted in their main computer this morning. You've been working for them for a year and half; I've been with 'em for eight months. Oh, and in case it ever comes up, your birthday is March twenty eight,1967; you were born in Buffalo, New York; and your social security number is 342 - 93 - 5288." 

"Why March twenty eighth?" 

"You look like a Leo, but you strike me more as an Aries." 

Logan decided he wasn't even going to try and understand that. He kept his i.d. and gave Marcus back his, but then he realized something. "Where did you get a picture of me?" 

"I e-mailed Helga yesterday and asked if she or Bob had a head shot of you I could use. The answer, in case you didn't get it, was yes." 

He scowled at him, but Marcus went right on eating his breakfast and watching the report on new irrigation techniques being used in the Kalahari. It figured that Helga or Bob had a picture of him he didn't know about. "So, even though you only asked me last night, you figured I'd agree to this?" 

"Well, you wouldn't want me to go get my fool ass killed, now would ya?" He finally looked at him, giving him that smart ass grin again, all teeth. 

Logan shook his head and took a swig of his beer, wondering how he ever got suckered into this. "What if they actually expect us to work?" 

"Let's try not to be there that long." 

He was all for that. 

5 

    The "guy" that flew them to Tuxtla Gutierrez in their charter plane was actually a woman Marc called Mattie, a plain but not unattractive brunette who carried herself with an almost military bearing and looked at him like he was something she'd just scraped off her shoe. Logan figured he wouldn't be asking her out any time soon. 

It was a nightmarishly long flight ( oh, how he longed for the X jet now ), and they had to stop once, to refuel in Texas. To his general surprise, Marcus didn't bring an excessive amount of weapons: three semi-automatic handguns, two flash bang grenades, and a tanto, a sort of military style knife. He tried to get Logan to take one of his guns, but Logan pointed out he was a weapon, and besides, he didn't like guns. "But you know if you gotta drop a guy, it's less muss and fuss to do it from a distance," Marcus replied, then rummaged through his backpack full of ammunition. "What do you think about these? You're a blade man." 

Marcus tossed what looked like a slim belt with way too many silver accents, but when Logan caught it, he realized what it actually was. "You have throwing knives?" That's what it was - a bandolier with eight silver throwing knives, each not quite as big as his palm. The ends were rounded, weighted perfectly for throwing, and tapered down to a lethally sharp edged blade and point. He took one out and held it between his thumb and forefinger, wondering why it almost felt familiar. "I'm not taking these either," he said, tossing the bandolier back. "But I'll keep this one in case we're in mixed company and I need a can opener." He slipped the lone knife into the pocket of the stupid safari shirt he now wore over the tank top. Marcus had insisted on the shirts because they had to look like "stupid Yanquis" who'd never been South of the border before. Logan warned him he wasn't playing bumpkin, but he wasn't sure he believed him. 

He wondered if they'd even manage to get to Santo Marco before creating an international incident. 


	3. Part 3

The airstrip that they landed at in Chiapas was actually outside of Tuxtla Gutierrez proper, and Logan guessed - since it was just a dirt runway hidden by a clutch of scraggly trees from the nearby villages - that it was one of the spots where drugs and arms smugglers came in and got out of Southern Mexico. Considering Marc's profession and Mattie's military rigid posture, he guessed their pilot was more involved in the illegal arms trade. 

The bright eye of the sun was just starting its downward creep towards the base of the horizon, turning the sky a sherbet pink that gradually darkened to the color of blood oranges. This was the more tropical side of Mexico - where deserts and endless stretches of sand gave way to groves of coconut palms, lianas, and the threat of malaria . Well, to to those without a healing factor, at any rate. It was somewhere in the nineties, with the heat still rising from the hard packed earth, and enough humidity thanks to the near by Gulf of Mexico that the air was close and uncomfortable. It smelled of brine and industrial pollution,  cooking fires and greenery, earth and raw sewage. 

Thanks to Logan's fluency in Spanish and Marc's money, they were able to hire a car ( a jeep, really ) and a driver that would take them to the border of Santo Marco. They weren't worried about getting scammed, robbed, or kidnapped - they were two mutants who had carved out a niche kicking ass. In fact, it would be a nice five minute diversion if someone tried it. But of course no one did; they were probably giving off too many "Try me, pendejo" vibes. Wasn't that always the way? 

The driver knew a short cut that took them deep into the jungle, through rocky paths and muddy roads, and as the light shaded to a deep violet overhead, a slash of sky seen through the canopy of trees, he almost wished they could stop and just drink in the sights. It was lovely here, and he knew there was something about being deep in the trees - be they forests or jungles - that he really loved. For reasons he couldn't even explain to himself, he felt at peace, safe; more at ease around the wild and animals than around people. Maybe because animals operated from a very basic set of motives - Humans were far more messy. 

He knew the driver, Carlos, didn't speak English, so they were free to talk. "Did Xavier ever ask you to come to the school?" He asked curiously, as they sat side by side in the back seat. Logan was prepared to move up front soon, as he was the one who spoke Spanish. 

Marcus nodded, looking up at the low branches of trees that just barely avoided hitting them; this was a very little used "short cut". And Logan could have sworn he just saw a sloth clinging to a higher branch. They didn't get this far North, did they? "Yeah, he told me I was "welcome" there - but man, I couldn't do it. I know he means well, but normals are never gonna share the world with us. But frankly, I'm glad - I don't want the world. It's a fuckin' mess. And besides, I don't go in for this political shit. You know what happened to Martin Luther King? Assassinated by some cracker dipshit. And Malcolm X was assassinated by a nut in his own group. Politics just gets you dead, and is never worth it." 

That reminded Logan of Jean's death, even though it wasn't politics that got her killed. "So why do this? No one's payin' you to make sure that mutants are being treated well in Santo Marco." 

"No, but if I know my mutant brothers are bein' used and abused, I am gonna put a stop to it - end of story. No one hurts my people if I can help it." 

Yes, they really could have used him at Alkali Lake. Scott wouldn't have liked it, but who gave a fuck? And for some reason, he thought it might have been fun if  Marcus had met that arrogant shit Magneto. One tap, and Magneto would have been on the floor and out for a while - or dead, if Marcus just decided it was time to end it. "So mutants are your brothers, huh? I thought I was the only one." 

He gave him that smart ass grin again. "I told you our dad had the happiest pants in the circus." 

After a scary series of serpentines that took them too close to several trees and travel over supposed roads that seemed to be made up of nothing more than big holes, Carlos swung them on to an actual paved highway. While it was a relief to not be in danger of accordioning against a banyan, he drove at manic speed, swinging the jeep in between huge semi tractor trailers, hauling goods to ( and from, when he briefly swerved into oncoming lanes ) South America, one problem had been replaced by another. Had Bob taught him how to drive? 

"Tell me you're wearing your flak jacket," Logan shouted, over the howl of the wind. It wouldn't do much in a high impact crash, but it was better than nothing. 

Logan discovered Carlos's terrifying excuse for driving was more tolerable if you looked up instead of ahead, so he did, sinking back against the seat and gazing up at the sky. It was beautiful, so much so that it startled him. It was a deep black now, like velvet, the white pinprick of stars like diamond dust scattered on its surface. The moon was a mere sliver of white light making its way across the darkness, and when they got close to the ocean he could see it floating on the surface of the ink black water like it had fallen out of the sky. 

For some reason, he thought of Jean, and then made himself stop. He had enough going on right now, and he didn't need to think about her. Of course, just thinking of that made him feel like a traitor for some reason, but hey - she was not the first woman to die on him, and was probably not the last. 

Now there was a cheerful thought. 

Eventually Carlos took them back off road, back into jungles that seemed to spring up out of nowhere, and when he started to slow down, Logan got suspicious and crawled up into the passenger seat, ducking low to avoid a branch as thick as his arm. Carlos told him this was a "troubled" area - meaning the juntas patrolled if not outright ruled this area. He had to slow down to seem just like a local, and he thought it might be helpful if they had a running conversation ( in Spanish, of course ), so they wouldn't be inclined to go check and see if there was any Americans in the vehicle. Logan almost pointed out Marcus was the only American - he was Canadian, damn it, and most people liked his people - but that seemed pointless. Besides, there were Canadian oil workers in Santo Marco, and they were probably just as despised as the Americanos. And his cover identity was American, wasn't it? 

So he sat up front and talked with Carlos about a soccer game he hadn't seen, a bar in Chiapas he had just made up, and several other things, aware that his Spanish was so impossibly fluent that he knew Marcus was right to take him on as an interpreter. 

The jungle was simply the jungle, but in the dark it had taken on a sinister aspect. Thick clumps of undergrowth and vines twining up trunks all could have been people lurking in the shadows; rustling of leaves and scuffling in the dirt could have been men shifting position, taking better aim; eyes of animals gleamed in the dimness, as chatoyant as a cat's, and could have been laser sights, infrared scopes pulsing out into the night. But only if you didn't have any other senses telling you different, and of course Logan did - he didn't smell Humans, cordite, machine oil, didn't hear the creak of leather boots or the shush of cloth uniforms, didn't feel predatory eyes. 

But after a while, he did get a scent of old humans, men who had passed through recently.They reeked of sweat and too many coca leaves, gun oil and desperation. Logan couldn't think of a worse combination of grinding poverty, political inequality, a long tradition of high level corruption and exploitation, delusions of grandeur, and access to weapons - was anyone really surprised at how deadly most of the region was? And that was before you added the drug cartels to the mix. He wondered what would happen if a mutant - a really powerful one - joined the conflict on one side or another. 

Carlos was nervous, but admirably kept it out of his voice - perhaps he knew, native or not, that some of these guys just smelled fear and moved in like a pack of attack dogs. Marcus was so relaxed he looked like he was slumped half conscious against the seat, but Logan knew better. 

Anyone who really who knew how to fight knew that you didn't tense up before you went into battle - you loosened up, let your muscles relax, focused your mind. If you were trained well enough, your body knew what to do and didn't need interference from you; reflex was always faster than conscious thought. Marcus raised his eyebrows questioningly when he glanced back at him, a tacit "I'm not supposed to be following this conversation, am I? ", and Logan could see on his lap, beneath his loosely folded hands, one of his HK semi-automatic handguns. Sunk low in the seat, head resting against the top edge, he was a hard target for snipers as well, and he had taken his sunglasses off, pretty well assured that Carlos wasn't about to turn around and look at him. Although he appeared half asleep, Marcus was actually on full alert, ready to take out any hostiles before they even had a chance to realize someone in the vehicle was capable of firing back. All of this told him Marc was a professional, in case he wasn't aware of that, and he knew the X-Men really needed someone like Scorpion in their ranks - someone who knew how to read a situation instinctively and knew how to kick ass as reflexively as breathing. 

( A cynical little voice in his mind said, "Isn't that what they have you for?" ) 

Maybe because they were both on full alert and ready to fight, it never happened - none of the shadows in the forest was truly humanoid, and none of the scents were more recent than a day. But that didn't stop Carlos from stopping deep in the jungle, right before the rutted, muddy road turned into nothing but a cluster of a trees and a type of fern so large it was almost as tall as he was. It was the end of the line, literally - they'd have to walk the rest of the way to the Santo Marco border. 

It was a literal no man's land; even Carlos warned them this part of the jungle was dangerous, especially at night, and they needed to be careful. "Don't worry, we can take care of ourselves," he assured him, as Marc put his sunglasses back on, pocketed his gun, and grabbed his backpack of ammunition off the floorboards. 

Logan gave Carlos an extra twenty bucks for getting them there in one piece and not trying to rip them off, and since that was a virtual windfall, Carlos was excessively grateful and warned them to stay away from the main roads and keep heading South. He thanked him and told him to be careful, and then Carlos was out of there like a shot - it didn't matter that he no longer had Westerners in his jeep: these jungles near the Santo Marco border were dangerous for everyone. 

As soon as he was gone, Marc took off his sunglasses and put them in one of the many pockets of his safari shirt. "Follow me," he said, moving ahead into the trees. Logan did, although there was enough moonlight for him to see by, and his sense of smell and hearing compensated for any gaps. Marcus was the one who saw night as bright and clear as daylight. As if to prove that, he never took a single misstep: never tripped over a trailing vine or a root that rose unexpectedly out of the ground, or rocks that seemed almost invisible in the shadows. 

They'd gone about a mile into the jungle, avoiding roads and startling animals, when Logan finally whispered, "So what's it like? I mean, you don't see everything washed out, like night vision goggles, do you?" His curiosity was killing him. 

Marcus shook his head. "It's not like those shitty digital depictions in movies, either. It's ... everything living gives of a specific heat and radiation signature. And some non-living things too - radiant heat, radiant energy, chemical reactions. But it's not uniform - there are specific variations from person to person. Even gender to gender - women generally have a greater heat concentration in their cores - trunk - than in their limbs. This is true of nearly everyone, but more so in women, for whatever reason, and even more so if they're pregnant. Although some mutants have some weird energy signatures. You, for example." 

"What's weird about me?" As soon as he said that, he regretted it. 

But Marcus didn't take the insult bait. "Your body temperature is extraordinarily uniform; weirdly so. No variations at all. Also, about four degrees below normal." 

He hadn't expected that answer, but he didn't know what answer he had been expecting. "Really?" 

"Yeah. I thought maybe it was all the metal you're packin', but maybe it's natural, related to your metabolic processes. Because once you're hurt and your healing factor kicks in, your temperature automatically shoots up to about a hundred or so. Then it goes back to normal once you're good." 

"Huh. Wonder what that means." 

"No idea. You'd have to ask ... a doctor. I read 'em, but I can't always diagnose." 

Logan knew he had paused because Marcus had almost told him to ask Jean, but stopped himself in the nick of time. Still, he didn't need to say her name for it to feel like he had been punched in the gut. 

They went back to silence for the next two miles, and that seemed like it was for the best. 

Logan knew they were near the border when the scent in the air started to change. The musky smells of animals and decomposing earth, leaves and flowers both fresh and rotting, gave way to more industrial smells: auto exhaust, oil, industrial effluvia - the smells of progress and people who didn't spend half their life hiding in the jungle, fighting a war whose purpose got more blurry every day. 

Then he began to hear an odd noise. It was an electrical hum, barely audible even to him, and he could smell charged ions in the air. "Whoa," Marcus said, stopping at the edge of what could generously be called a "clearing" - the trees were spaced much farther apart, and the lush undergrowth seemed to be tamer here. 

"Trap?" He asked. It felt like it. 

He nodded. "This place is lit up like Christmas in Vegas. They have infrared beams making a net of this place. They're at waist height, a couple inches off the ground, and at head level - it would be impossible to avoid all of them. What the fuck? Do they have the mechanisms in the trees?" 

"I assume the question is rhetorical," Logan opined, as Marcus continued looking around the clearing. 

"Yeah. I don't think we can go this way." 

"No way to lead us through?" 

"Can you see the beams?" 

"No. I can smell 'em, though; hear the machines puttin' 'em out." 

Marcus looked back at him, eyes seemingly bigger, blacker, and more alien in the dark. "Seriously? They have a smell?" 

He shrugged. "Sort of - the charged particles kinda have a smell. They fry dust and other particles that drift in their path." 

Marcus continued to stare at him, and his failure to blink was unnerving. "Fuck - you're serious, aren't you? How do you ever stand bein' around people?" 

"You learn to filter it out." 

"I bet you do." He looked back at the jungle full of infrared beams he could only see, and said, "Follow me exactly. If you bust a beam and somethin' happens, I ain't savin' your clumsy ass." 

So what followed was what seemed like ten minutes of bad try outs for Cirque du Soliel - Marcus moved with great care, stepping over and ducking under unseen beams, and Logan copied his movements precisely, feeling as foolish as hell. He suddenly recalled that line in several old movies -"Walk this way." - and the joke where the character would then mimic the walk of the person they were following. If someone as watching them (no-he didn't sense eyes), they'd have been laughing their ass off. Logan knew he would have been. 

Logan was certain one of them ( okay, him ) would fuck up and set off ... something, but somehow, in spite off all the strange movements and contortions, they made it through. "No junta did that," Logan noted, regaining his balance just in time before he fell flat on his face. 

"Oh hell no," he agreed. "Where they gettin' the power to feed these things? I smell oil money." 

"But what are they protecting, besides the oil?" It was a rhetorical question, because what else had they come down here for? 

"Maybe it's not protection," Marcus replied. "Keepin' someone in is the same as keepin' someone out." 

Now there was a chilling thought. 

They'd barely gone another three hundred meters into the jungle - the smell of industry growing thicker - when Marc started looking down and slowing his walk. "Hold up - weird cold spots in the ground ahead." 

"Mines?" 

"That's my thinkin'. Claymores, if I don't miss my guess." 

"Home made or prof?" 

"Looks pretty official to me. " 

"So not the juntas either." 

"Probably not." 

All landmines were nasty by nature, but Clays were mines with prizes inside - metal fragments, ball bearings, nails, any assortment of objects given lethal velocity by the detonation of the mine. Claymores gave you a lot of bang for your buck in sheer collateral damage. They were vicious weapons - whoever put them out here really wanted to hurt as many people as possible. "How many are we talking about?" He wondered, following Marc's steps closely - he really didn't want to find out how long it would take him to heal from a Claymore mangling. 

"I've got twelve spread out over this entire area," he said, gesturing with his arms. 

"Shit. That's big bucks." 

"And big paranoia." 

"Wanna bet small dicks?" 

"Micro-fucking-scopic." Marcus agreed. After a moment, he said, "I wonder how many animals they've nailed with these." 

"Enough that they don't come around here anymore." He didn't smell any recent "marks". 

"What the fuck are you now, Doctor Doolittle? Can you do a Tarzan yell and get the lemurs to help us?" 

"Fuck you," he snapped. He let a moment pass before he added, "There aren't any lemurs in Central America." 

He just shrugged. "Whatever." 

Logan heard the Rio Preto and smelled its polluted waters long before it came into their sight. The river made up a natural border for Santo Marco and helped keep some of the "riff raff" out, but judging from the minefield and clearing full of infrared beams, not nearly enough. 

They hid in the trees and scoped out the "land bridge" portion, leading up to the heavy gate that marked the entrance to Santo Marco proper. It was like viewing a section of the American border from the Mexican side. "I'm smellin' several armed men," Logan muttered. 

" I got six hots in the vicinity," Marcus whispered in reply. "Two men on the main gate, four others on perimeter patrol inside the compound." 

"You mean country." 

"The country's a fucking compound - the terms are interchangeable. They're all heavily armed and wearing body armor. They're sweatin' like fucking pigs." 

"Lit up like pyres?" 

"Yeah. They smell like burnin' tires?" 

"Not from this distance - more like sweatsocks." 

"Bad enough." 

The "bridge" across the Rio Preto looked like a flattened arch of hard packed dirt, about twelve feet wide and twenty feet long. It was reinforced on the bottom by concrete and steel, spanning the inky, lugubrious ribbon of water beneath it. It smelled like a waterway tainted by sewage and petroleum distillates, and Logan idly wondered if there was anything still living in it. 

The bridge was part of the dirt road that snaked out of the jungle on their far right, leading down the slightest of inclines to Fortress Santo Marco. There was no other access point, as the river and the concrete wall surrounding the border crossing left it pretty isolated. 

This really was the perfect place to commit horrific acts - as if being wealthy enough to silence corrupt neighboring governments, angry insurgents, and terrified villagers wasn't enough of a protection, they had the Preto and a border tighter then a narc's asshole in prison. Oh god, there was a simile he really could have done without. 

"Ready to get this farce under way, bro?" Marcus asked. It only sounded like a question - it really wasn't, and they both knew it. 

"I was born ready." 

Marcus gave a mock "black power" salute. "Fight the powers that be." 

They then cut through the trees to the main road, and started down towards certain doom. 

Now there was a scenario Logan couldn't help but think was starting to get old. 

6 

    For all their security, it was almost too easy to get inside Santo Marco. Not that he was complaining. 

Marcus had a flask of tequila in his backpack, and they both took a big swig from it before crossing the bridge. They were barely on it before they were hit with a spotlight, but they had been anticipating it, and Marcus had put on his black sunglasses before they left the relative safety of the trees. 

They pretended to be slightly dazed by the light and the shouting men, and Marcus draped his arm over Logan's shoulders and hung off him, laughing. He was going for really wasted drunk, and he was doing a damn good job of it; once again, he wondered why he hadn't become an actor. 

Oh, right - insect eyes, poison fingernails. Would probably make for awkward close ups and unfortunate handshakes. 

Marcus began a rambling discourse about a broken down truck and a guy named Pedro, and while guns remained aimed at them, they were allowed to approach the gate. A really bored and irritated looking guard who looked like six feet of muscle packed into a squarish five and a half foot package met them there, sweltering in his flak jacket and ammo belt, met them there. With his AK-47 assault rifle slung over his shoulder, he listened with veiled hostility to their rambling tale about coming in early to visit Cancún, and how they ran out of money and decided it would be best to show up bright and early for work. The pug like guard winced at their tequila breath, and shouted to his wary fellow guards, "These guys are tanked." 

"Tell me no one ate the worm," one of the guards who was standing at a station near the top of the wall ( like a guard tower in a prison movie ) shouted down. To Logan, it didn't sound like he was speaking from experience more than he was worried what would happen if someone did. 

"Are they crunchy?" Marcus replied, then giggled like an idiot. Logan forced himself to join in, if only because Marc was pretty funny when acting like a complete asshole. He had warned him before he was going to do an impersonation of one of those "drunken frat boys you find at agricultural colleges". Logan had no idea what that meant, but simply nodded like he understood, because frankly there were some things you just didn't want to know. 

Finally, the guard asked impatiently, "If you're employees, where are your i.d.'s?" 

Logan had decided to play the drunk guy who thinks he's doing a good job of playing sober. Which meant all he had to do was pause for a long time before answering anyone, have a hard time focusing on any one thing ( save for the ground ), almost lose his balance several times ( especially while standing still ), and move like he had someone pulling his strings. After some hesitant movements, he found his i.d. and promptly dropped it while trying to hand it to the guy. Marcus went through several tortured movements and false starts, laughing at himself as he failed to find his own i.d. badge. 

The grouchy guard handed Logan's i.d. to a taller, slimmer guard behind him, and he waved a gun shaped wand over it. There was a bleep in the guard tower, and the guy on the wall went to check it out. "He's clear," the guy yelled back. 

Grouchy guard ( Oscar - that was the name of the grumpy muppet ) handed him his badge back, just as Marcus found his and gave it to him. He glanced at it before handing it back to the guy for confirmation, and said with obvious disbelief, "You're brothers?" 

Marc looked at him sharply, changing from goofy drunk to surly drunk in a heartbeat. "Gotta problem with dat?" 

Even though his eyes were hidden by shades, Oscar the guard must have felt the intensity of his gaze, because he took a step back and said, "No, whatever, just sayin' - " 

"Sayin' what?" He snapped. 

Oscar held up his hands in mock surrender. "Nothing, nothin' at all." 

Marcus had been absolutely right - Logan was roughly certain the race issue wouldn't come up again, at least not among these guys. 

There was a bleep of confirmation from the computer and another shout that he was clear, but they seemed rather subdued about it, perhaps because they didn't want to set Marcus off. But when he handed his badge back, Oscar asked, "What's with the gloves?" 

"These are my drivin' gloves - they go with my hat." He reached up and patted his shaved pate. "Where th' fuck's my hat?" 

"Don't ask me," Logan replied, after waiting a very long beat. It had occurred to him that, if they wanted to, he and Marc could probably take down this entire crew right now. He'd have to go after the guy on the wall with the gun, but that wouldn't be a problem, and Marc could take out the guys on ground level.  But right, the stealth thing - they were going to figure out what the hell was going on here first. Then they were going to burn the house down. 

"You stole my hat," Marcus slurred accusingly. Out of the corner of his eye, Logan saw Oscar roll his eyes. 

"I did not," Logan protested, as the gates were retracted open. 

"You did too," Marcus insisted, as they staggered forward into Santo Marco. "Yer mad 'cause we didn't get the smokin' burro." 

Logan hoped he'd made that up - what the fuck was a smoking burro? It sounded like an animal cruelty charge. 

The skinny soldier who'd been acting as middleman was their unofficial escort inside the compound, and they followed him like Siamese twins connected at the shoulder, a shambling four legged beast of drunkenness. From what he could see, this part of Santo Marco could have been air dropped in from a fashionable part of Atlanta or San Francisco: houses with veranda and gables sat evenly spaced beyond the cold grey cinder block building that Logan couldn't help but think of as the "booking" area. "You guys were lucky, you know," the slender soldier told them, his long face shiny with sweat. "There's a lot of dangerous people out in the jungle. You could get killed." 

And by your traps, he thought, but didn't dare say. 

Even though the only lights were high energy halogens lining the cement interior wall and spots around the forward bunker and some of the insultingly lavish homes in the interior, it was still possible to make out in the far distance the reason for all this security and wealth - six oil derricks pumping away into the night, the heavy heads of the drilling rigs driving the polish rods down into the well heads and creating the suction necessary to draw up the oil hidden deep in the earth. 

(How the fuck did he know that?!) 

They looked like giant erector set versions of dinosaurs, towering in the background like an everpresent menace, repeating the same movements over and over again in slow motion. They had tiny red lights on them, outlining them in the dark, and Logan could feel the thrum of them in the ground, but he didn't know if Marcus was picking that up or it was just him. 

They cooled their heels on a stone bench outside the bunker while the guard went into see if they had any "barracks" open for them ( was the use of a military term ironic or revealing? ) since they arrived ahead of schedule - well, ahead of the schedule Marcus had planted in the computer. 

There were still perimeter patrols in sight, so they weren't exactly unobserved, but they did pass out of ear shot on patrol. Marcus slumped back against the bench, as if about to pass out, and murmured, "Why do I get the feelin' this is just like entering East Berlin back in '72?" 

He hadn't even whispered it; it was so low it was almost sub-vocalized. But Marc knew he'd hear it as clear as day. "Well, at least they ain't speakin' German," he whispered in reply, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth to hide the movement of his lips. 

Logan turned his head towards the building and strained hard to hear, but they'd done a pretty good job of soundproofing the check in point; he was just hearing mutters, sounds not quite words. What was it called in Berlin? Checkpoint Charlie. Maybe this was Checkpoint Carlos. 

"Gettin' anything?" Marc subvocalized at him. 

Logan just shook his head as he pretended to bat a mosquito away, and leaned forward heavily, as if about to be sick, when the guard came out. "You guys are lucky, we have some open units out in Meadow Lane." 

Logan couldn't help it. Still doing his damnedest to appear drunk and out of it, he replied, "Meadow Lane? You got meadows around here?" 

The guard chuckled as another jeep - newer than the one Carlos drove, and in much better condition body and engine wise - pulled up. "Well, sort of. You'll see." The guard tried to help him up, but Logan yanked his arm away, and at the last second remembered to stumble and just barely regain his balance. 

The jeep's driver looked to be a native, a short bronze skinned man with a weary expression, like he really hated his job but didn't know what to do about it. The guard got in the passenger seat while Logan and Marcus spilled into the back seat, and maybe they were just two extraordinarily broad shouldered guys or the seat was built for smaller people, because they both just barely fit. 

Unlike the roads in the jungle, or even the ones in Chiapas, they were as smooth as a freshly tarred street, with not a bump or stone to their name, and the driver - while relatively fast - seemed to be familiar with the rules of driving. The night air was cool and felt good, but still smelled too much of people and industry for Logan's taste. "Hey, I was wonderin' if you could tell me where a buddy of mine might be," Logan shouted over the roar of the wind in their faces. 

The guard looked back over his shoulder, and, unseen by him, Marcus gave Logan a brief, sharp kick in the ankle. They hadn't discussed this beforehand. "Maybe. What's the name?" 

"Ethan Casey? He was one of the drillers back in Texas." 

The guard's bright, naive blue eyes seemed to cloud just a little before his face set in a bland expression. "No, sorry, never heard of  'im." 

As soon as the guard faced front, he and Marcus exchanged quizzical glances. Drilling supervisor Ethan Casey, subject of several internal memos over an "incident" that was never described in detail but mentioned as "potentially disastrous", was persona non grata in Santo Marco? They could stonewall him out of the official records, but they couldn't make him cease to exist - what about his family? Did he have family? What if he didn't - or didn't anymore? 

He shared a grim look with Marc before glancing up at the looming towers of the oil drills, which - through some optical illusion - seemed to remain the same distance away as they were taken deeper into this splinter of a "country". He felt an itch of impatience in his mind, and it was all he could do not to break his cover and fidget. He wanted to get wherever the hell they were being dumped off, so they could wait for the surveillance to disappear and leave them free to sneak around. 

Logan had a feeling their best bet for answers laid on the "Plain of Night". But he did wonder how in the hell they were going to find it - and what would be waiting there for them. 


	4. Part 4

7 

    "Meadow Lane" was the white bread suburban name for a housing complex that was ... well, a white bread suburb air dropped in from somewhere in America. They were little split level houses set about a house length apart, and all had lush gardens that were not only clearly landscaped but out of place in the otherwise bare and sere land in this part of Santo Marco. 

The house was well appointed and scrupulously neat, but Logan could smell the former presence of another person. Not part of the cleaning crew - a man who had lived here long enough that even a total housecleaning couldn't eradicate all traces of him. He suddenly wondered if it had been Casey. 

Both he and Marcus did a tour of the house in the dark, using their senses to figure out if they were being observed. They found three bugs, which they quietly collected and put gently in an outside garbage can. Well, if they had destroyed them, they would know, and they weren't ready to tip their hand yet. 

As soon as they were sure the coast was clear, they went out the back door and headed out on foot towards the most likely area of Plano da Noite - towards the oil derricks. 

Once again they avoided the main roads and stuck to walking over fields of wild grasses and between clutches of wild palms, although they were aware of more people out and about - just not near them. With their senses, it was easy to avoid everyone. 

In truth, Logan was tired. He was pretty sure it was a combination of time zone swapping and the fact that he hadn't slept very much over the last few days - well, sleep was for suckers. He figured he had a good twenty hours before he became completely incoherent. 

They were Northwest of the main oil field, out of plain view of the graveyard workers, and partially screened by long, slender trees that almost looked like poplars but couldn't possibly be. They were crossing a grassy flat, and the strangest feeling came over Logan. His skin felt like it was tingling but not in a good way; like pins and needles when a "sleeping" limb wakes up. But he'd never had a sleeping limb ... 

They were being watched. 

He stopped, and Marcus noticed and turned immediately. "What is it?" He whispered quietly. In the harsh, flat light from the quarter moon, he did look alien, like a creature stuffed unwillingly into a Human skin. 

"Somethin' isn't right here," he said quietly, looking around. The drills continued their ca-chunk ca-chunk, the minute vibrations of the actions making the ground quiver faintly beneath their feet, and he sniffed the air warily. Nothing but the scents of the distant men ( discussing what one had for dinner; another pair discussing a strip club in Panama where you could buy the women for the price of a cup of coffee; another discussing the work schedule with the supervisor ) and them, nothing else ... except what was that? 

It was a faint scent, nearly buried by the smell of sweat and oil, coffee and turned earth. It was both sickly sweet and stale, like rotted flesh in an abandoned mausoleum. His claws were itching to spring from his hands. He continued looking around, and Marc joined him. "I ain't getting anything unusual," he offered. 

"I am," Logan insisted. 

"What?" 

"It's just a feeling." 

"A feeling of what?" 

"It's - " He had started towards the stand of trees on the far left, but stopped as he spied a figure watching them from behind a slender palm. 

Jean. 

His heart stopped, and it felt like his blood had turned to ice water. Her hazel eyes met his and she smiled slyly, her hair looking like a fiery crimson in the moonlight; it seemed to flow around her head like she was still under water. Her face had a pale luminosity that made him think of mythical ghosts ... they were mythical, right? 

When he could speak, he said to Marc, "Tell me you see her." 

His head snapped sharply in the direction he was staring at, and Marcus said, "Who? Where is she?" 

Jean's smile grew wider, more malevolent, and Logan knew what was wrong here - no smell. He couldn't smell her, and Marcus couldn't see her - she wasn't here at all. 

So what the hell was? 

She seemed to slip behind the tree, trailing a gloved hand along the grey bark, and he shouted, "No you don't!" He snapped out of his paralysis and started to run, but stopped short as Marcus cried out in pain behind him. 

"Fuck!" Marcus snapped, closing his eyes tight and ducking his head as he staggered back. He brought up his hands, and both had guns in them, but his eyes remained shut. "Where's it coming from, Logan?" 

"What?" 

"The spotlight," he said, grimacing in pain, swinging his guns around to bear on something that wasn't there. 

"Spotlight?" The penny finally dropped, and he realized why he saw Jean without smelling her, and why Marc thought he was being assailed by a spotlight that didn't exist - something was fucking with their heads. None of this was real. "There's no spotlight, Marc." 

"Fuck you! There is so! What are ya, blind all of a sudden?" 

"It's just me," he assured him as he walked over. He pulled the sunglasses out of Marc's shirt pocket and slid them on over his eyes. "Okay, see for yourself." 

Marcus reluctantly opened his eyes, still squinting slightly, and then took a good look around, lowering his weapons. "Where'd it go?" 

"Wherever she went," he groused, then added, "At least we found it." 

"Found what?" 

"The Plain of Night," Logan told him, glancing around warily. He got no sense of anything around them, but he could still feel it watching them just the same. He hadn't even felt the intrusion in his mind, and that really disturbed him. In fact, he was starting to feel really pissed off, because he'd been through this seeing the dead thing before, back in Saint Michel. But this was different somehow, wasn't it?  "Come on, we'd better get out of here while we still can." 

"Huh? How do you know?" Marcus had slipped one gun back into its hidden holster, but he still kept one out just in case. 

" 'Cause night is when the monsters walk, right?" 

Marcus lowered his glasses to the bridge of his nose and gazed at him like he was waiting for the punchline. 

But since Logan wasn't joking, he was going to be waiting for a long time. 

8 

    Marcus was paranoid enough to bring what he called a "good" cell phone, as he didn't trust the land lines, and after finding the bugs in the house Logan didn't blame him. Of course, the drawback was that they might not be able to get a signal out here, but Marcus was hopeful that since Santo Marco was basically "oil company land", they'd have better than average cell phone reception this close to the equator. 

He'd been right, as it didn't take Logan long to get a signal. He had to go out back, though, as for some reason he couldn't make a connection inside the house. So he sat on the cement patio, leaning back against the house in Meadow Lane, and made his calls. It was a warm enough night that Marcus kept the back door open, and was busy making himself a snack in the kitchen - of course it was stocked with food, basically all Western. "Yee haw, we have us the American food of choice," Marcus had exclaimed, then tossed a can of Cheez Whiz at him. Logan did the only thing you could do with a can of spray cheese - he threw it in the garbage can, careful not to smash the bugs. By all rights he should have flushed the crap, but the can was too big to fit down the toilet. 

He couldn't find Helga. He got the answering machine in Sydney ( she had never taken Bob's message off the machine ), and when he called the Way Station he got a grouchy ( meaning normal ) Lia, who told him Helga was taking care of some "Bob business" in Myanmar, and no she had no idea how to get ahold of her, nor was she her answering service. 

Logan was ready to pound the phone to bits on the patio - he could hardly call Xavier and say, "Hey Chuck, I'm down in this place called Santo Marco, and I think it's demon infested. Little help?" - when he thought of someone he hadn't thought of in a very long time. He wondered if he still remembered the number? 

As it turned out, he didn't. But a call to California information got him a number he could use, and he punched it up, only worrying about the time difference when the phone started to ring. Still, he did most of his business at night, right? 

After three rings, the phone was picked up. "Hello?" A British man said, his voice slightly muddled with sleep. Maybe this was his night off or something. 

"Wesley?" He replied, aware it was him but feeling suddenly awkward about it. When was the last time he saw him? He hoped they parted on okay terms; he'd have hated it if his last hope hung up on him. 

"Who is this?" He sounded slightly more awake, and on alert - he recognized his voice, but couldn't place it. 

"Logan. I was, uh - " 

"Wolverine," he said. "Yes, the mutant, I remember." The mutant? Like there was only one of  them?  "Good lord, I didn't think we'd ever hear from you again." 

Marcus had met Wesley Wyndham-Price, of course - in fact he was there when the Shrike controlled Wes punctured his lungs with a shotgun blast, and Wes somehow put the pedal to the metal and outraced an explosive shockwave, saving all their asses. Still, Marc had referred to him as the "poncy British guy". Wesley probably would have loved that. "Yeah, well ... I've been meanin' to drop a postcard." 

Wesley let out a humorous scoff, and from the faint sounds of shifting he was sitting up. "I understand. Saving the world is time consuming." 

"Isn't it though?" 

"What can I do for you, Logan?" 

He'd already guessed why he was calling now. Well, the Watchers were supposed to be pretty smart, right? "Look, I'm down in this place called Santo Marco - " 

"Central America," Wes interrupted, if only to let him know he was on the same page. 

"Right. Well, Marc and I - Scorpion, you remember him?" 

He paused for a moment. "Short tempered mutant with infrared sight, enhanced strength, and poison in his fingers?" 

Short tempered - that was such a lovely upper class British way to put it. He probably described him the same way. "Yeah. We came down here 'cause we suspected there was some weird anti-mutant shit going on, but it might even be more complicated than that." 

"Supernaturally complicated?" 

"I think so." He told him what happened on the "Plain of Night" - him seeing a dead woman while Marc was incapacitated by a spotlight that existed only in his head - and while Wesley listened without comment, he heard him turning through the pages of a book rapidly. 

Finally, Wes said, "Did you - " 

But Logan knew what he was going to ask. "Didn't see anything else, hear anything, or smell anything ... exactly." 

"Exactly?" 

"There was a slight odor of decay, but I think it belongs to the area, not to the thing. Whatever it was." 

Another pause, longer this time, the riffling of pages more pronounced. "Now, while he's never been known to be active in the area, there's a demon by the name of Sygratha who - " 

"Ain't him." 

"How do you know?" 

"'Cause I killed him when he tried to manifest himself in a town called Saint Michel earlier this year." Actually, he didn't die, he just went back to his "in-between" phase or place or whatever the fuck it was - he never did try and make sense of it. There were just some things you didn't need to know. 

"Killed the person he was bound to?" 

"It was too late for that. I blew him to kibbles and bits with dynamite." 

"That would do it," Wes agreed. He paused, and there was more page flipping. "Do you know if there was anything  that happened that may have caused this event? It's quite possible demons have always been there, but it's also possible there was a triggering event." 

He thought about it a moment, and then realized, "The drilling." 

"What?" 

"They tried to drill for oil there. But something - I don't know what - went wrong." 

"And now Ethan Casey doesn't exist," Marcus pointed out, sitting in the open doorway. He was eating a sandwich that was excessively crunchy: it smelled like vegetables, mustard, and bread alone. 

He added the puzzle of Casey to the pile for Wes to consider, and glanced up at the sky. The same velvet black as before, with the same diamond chips of stars, but it seemed more distant here, colder - a sky that was no more than a ventilated coffin lid. 

"That entire area is something of a mystical hot spot," Wesley finally told him. "Several civilizations down there constantly evoked otherworldly forces." 

"Like Camaxtli?" It suddenly occurred to him that Central America was kind of his home spot, wasn't it? If he/she/it could be said to have one. Was that just a coincidence? 

"Excellent example - Camaxtli was worshipped as a god among the Mayans, the Aztecs, and the Chichimec." 

"The Chichi who?" 

"They are a somewhat obscure tribe. A rather disagreeable sort of god no matter the people who worshipped it, but that seems to be generally true of all gods of fate - they're rarely depicted as warm and cuddly." Wesley paused, then asked, somewhat suspiciously, "How do you know of Camaxtli?" 

"Bob told me about him." 

"Oh, I see." He sounded surprised that Bob knew of Camaxtli as well. Logan wondered what he would think if he told him "Cammy" seemed to be a personal friend of his. "Have you talked to Bob about this?" 

"I've tried, but he's still in another dimension." Marcus gave him a strange look out of the corner of his eye. 

Wesley made a faint noise of disapproval. "Hell of a time for a vacation." 

He must not have known about that whole Kumiho mess - but then again, who did? Logan wasn't about to tell him now. But it suddenly occurred to him - Jean had liked sharing Camaxtli's power. She'd told him that, hadn't she, when she asked him what it was like having Bob's power. She enjoyed the rush of it, the intoxication of so much power, and she had been looking for someone who knew the feeling. Sadly, he hadn't - he didn't like the feeling of being so out of control, although he understood how it could be something of a high. 

Did that mean something? Had part of Jean stayed with Camaxtli, and vice versa? ( Did that explain her power surge? ) Had she appeared simply to torment him ... or had she been trying to warn him? After all, Marc was hurt - but he hadn't been. 

"Have any idea what we're facing here?" He asked Wes, getting back to the point before his imagination carried him away. 

"Well, the problem is there's so many possibilities. If they did inadvertently unearth a sacred burial mound, say, or a consecrated artifact, there's no telling what kind of evil they could have unleashed." 

"Just like a horror movie?" 

"No, worse - these things rarely wrap up in under two hours." 

"True. And usually there's a lack of starlets in skimpy underwear." Now Marcus was really staring at him. He mouthed silently: "Can I have one?" 

Wesley sighed, but wistfully. "It would certainly make the job more interesting. Look, I know this is probably not going to happen, but until I figure out what may be down there, I think you should leave the area. I don't think the world could handle you possessed by an evil being." 

"Been there, done that," he said, rubbing his eyes. Before Wes could ask, he said, "It was a drama getting in here, and I doubt gettin' out will be much easier. Besides, we still haven't figured out what's happened to the mutants." 

"And you're a stubborn bastard." 

"Goes without saying." 

"Give me your number - I'll call you as soon as I find something." Logan dutifully read off the cell's number, and he could hear Wes scribbling it down on a piece of paper. Once that was done, Wes told him with a sort of world weariness, as if he knew he really wouldn't heed a damn thing he said, "Be very careful, Logan. I know you feel very blasé about dealing with the supernatural, but there are some things that even those of us trained to deal with it can't handle." 

"If it gets too heavy, we'll go," he told him, partially meaning it. 

"Please do," Wes replied, although it didn't sound like he had much faith in that. 

As soon as Logan hung up, Marc said, "I ain't going anywhere." 

"Neither am I. But I had to give him something." 

"So what's this about Bob bein' in a different dimension? Is that a death euphemism I've never heard before?" 

"No. There are other dimensions - I've seen some, thanks to Bob givin' me a backstage pass - and Bob's chilling in one. To make a long story short, he fought a god and got hurt, and he's recuperating in a dimension that's a little more friendly. One that I assume doesn't require him to maintain a physical form." 

Marcus raised his eyebrows at that. "Bob doesn't have a physical form?" 

"Well, I think it's optional." 

"And he's fought a god?" 

"A couple, actually." 

"What do gods look like?" 

Logan shrugged, handing him back the phone. "They all look different. Some are ugly frog guys, some look like extras from "The Life of Brian", some are snake women, some look like gigantic squids, some look like fiery angels, and some ... well, some look like Bob." 

Marcus put the phone down between them on the patio, and held his sandwich off to one side. "You're sayin' Bob's a god?" 

"He's never exactly admitted it, but he's gotta be." 

"So Bob's a pseudonym?" 

"Has to be - who ever heard a god named Bob?" 

Marcus nodded in agreement. "Any guesses on who he might really be?" 

Logan threw his hands up in a gesture that was part surrender and part dismissive. "No clue. I don't know my gods that well." 

"Well, this ain't a cakewalk for me either. I'm an atheist, and you're asking me to embrace polytheism." 

"I wasn't exactly into this shit," he informed him. "And I think most of the major religions would be destroyed if word got out." 

"I don't know. If there has to be a god, why not Bob? He's pretty cool. Also, total hottie." 

Logan snorted humorously. "I'm sure he'd appreciate that." From here, he could see that Marc's sandwich was mostly the contents of the vacuum packed salad mix in the fridge. He then remembered what he had seen - or not seen - in Marc's refrigerator back in Baltimore, and said, "You're a vegetarian?" 

"Finally caught up, Sherlock?" He replied sarcastically, taking another bite of his sandwich. After chewing for a moment, he said, "I'm not militant about it - if the only thing to eat is red meat, I'll eat it. But I don't like it." 

"Fair enough." 

They listened to the distance noises of the oil derricks - well, Logan did - and the more noisy sounds of Marc eating his sandwich, and the cool breeze that sporadically picked up, although now it struck Logan as eerie somehow; a chill in search of a spine. 

"So what do we do now?" Marcus finally asked. 

"Wait for Wes to call back, I guess," he admitted, a bit at a loss himself. "And be ready, in case that thing comes for us." 

"How do you prepare for the unknown?" 

Logan could only shrug. "I've been asking myself that same question for the last fifteen years." 

And he never had found a happy medium, had he? One of these days, he was bound to get it right. 

9 

    They came up through the floor. 

At first, Logan thought it was the oil rigs. Something woke him up, something set off his trouble radar, and he sat up in bed, getting instantly to his feet. 

There were two bedrooms in the house, and of course Marcus staked out the biggest one for himself, but he hadn't actually cared - he didn't like to sleep, and he hoped they weren't here long enough for them to get used to it. He had also intended to keep his clothes on, but it was so warm, in spite of the air conditioner humming in the living room, that he'd stripped down to his boxers and slept on top of the covers. Well, for a while. 

It was when he stood he felt the tremble in the ground, beneath the thin napped grey carpet, and he realized it couldn't have been from the drilling rigs. He hadn't felt it before, and it wasn't like the derricks were mobile. 

Something was under the floorboards, under the ground, and from the rapid increase in the trembling, it was coming up fast. He didn't think there was time to warn Marcus - in fact, he knew there wasn't. He could hear them now, the ground breaking up under their assault. 

"Here they come!" He shouted, as the floor exploded upward right in front of him. 

What emerged were tentacles or possibly highly mobile snakes - as thick as boas but even longer. He popped his claws and severed the first four before they could reach him, but more exploded through the floor behind him and wrapped themselves around his neck and legs. 

They were covered in sharp scales, like a shark, but the scales were even keener, and sliced his skin like razor blades wherever they made contact. As he struggled and slashed out blindly, they tore his skin, cut it to ribbons, and he felt the terrible burn of healing as he struggled to cut himself free and breathe again. 

He got free, but not for long. He cut through another half dozen tentacles, splattering blue-black blood on the whitewashed walls as the muscular appendages twitched and flailed on the broken floor. It wasn't like they had been cut of from their host body more than they had been simply blinded, unable to focus on their target anymore. 

Two emerged from behind him simultaneously and grabbed his ankles, yanking him down and into a sea of writhing, slicing tentacles. He closed his eyes in time for a tentacle to wrap around his face and cut his eyelids open - he had the disconcerting sensation of being able to see through them before his healing factor sealed them shut once more. The fetid scent of them, of decomposing flesh and fermenting blood, clogged his nostrils and threatened to take away his breath. 

Now the tentacles had been joined by skeletal hands, some with rotten flesh sloughing off as they grabbed him, as their sharp bones broke through his skin and sank into his muscles. The pain was intense and terrible, but a great help, as it fueled his rage as they started to drag him under the dirt. 

With a noise that was half snarl, half yell, he fought back, slashing wildly, kicking out with his feet and lashing out with elbows, crushing bones and slicing through skin as hard as diamond as he struggled back up to the surface. It was like they were trying to drown him in a sea of corroding, gangrenous flesh. 

Even though he felt the skin of his legs tear off like nylon, he pulled himself back up to floor level, surprised that he had been yanked that deep in the first place. He dug a claw into the intact floor and tried to pull himself up on to it when he felt the teeth sink into his back. 

It was near his kidneys, in fact, just over his hip and slightly right of his spine. The teeth, the needle teeth that felt like shivs, bit deep and pulled, like it was yanking flesh off a chicken leg. He could help but scream as it tore away a huge chunk of his skin and muscle, but it gave him extra incentive to pull himself out of the pit. 

He managed to drag himself across the floor, away from the sudden sinkhole, and he saw maybe a dozen tentacles now reaching out of it, flailing like angry snakes, the skeletal hands and arms groping blindly at the edges for just a little more malleable flesh. 

"Marcus!" He shouted, hoping he'd get a reply. He'd been half expecting to hear gunshots, and the lack of that noise bothered him. "Marc! Are you - " 

Something exploded through the floor of the doorway, and this time it was the head and neck of a giant serpent with gleaming silver scales, glowing red eyes, and a mouth wide enough to swallow his entire body. Its foot long teeth were blood red, and he wondered if that was the thing that took a bite out of him. As Logan climbed to his feet, it opened its maw and hissed at him. "Oh, shut the fuck up," he spat, and slashed out at its face. He cut its lower jaw off, and as it reared back, he cut through its thick neck and lopped its head off. 

The body retracted through the floor even as the head toppled aside, and he limped out into the living room. "Marcus!" His right leg, the one that had the skin peeled off like an onion, was burning hideously, he could still feel blood running down his thigh as his skin desperately tried to grow back over exposed muscle and fat.  Every step was like walking on shrapnel, but he had to make sure that Marc was okay. If  he was dead, if he had died too - 

He froze in his tracks as he saw a figure standing by the window. "Marc?" He asked, but even as he said it he knew he was wrong. It didn't smell like Marc, but it didn't smell like the things back there either. It smelled like - 

"Jean," he said, wishing he was surprised. 

She stepped into a convenient shaft of moonlight slanting in through the glass, and its silvery glow made it look as if her hair was a halo of fire. Her eyes looked looked like they had a red afterimage, barely submerged beneath the hazel. "You're hurt." 

"And you're dead," he said, limping towards her, raising a still sprung claw. He was furious at this thing - whatever it was - wearing her form, stealing her scent from the storehouse of his memories, and he wasn't going to put up with it. 

It knew what he was thinking. He'd barely gotten a foot closer when it raised its hand towards him, palm out, and Logan froze in his tracks, caught in an invisible forcefield. Now it was mimicking her abilities, the rotten bastard."I know what you're thinking, Logan," she said. "You're wrong." 

"That I'm gonna kill you, you stupid piece of shit?" He growled. "No, I'm right." 

"I'm not who you think I am." 

"You're a demonic fuck. And if you hurt Marcus - " 

"He's fine, for now. But he won't be - and neither will you - if you don't leave now." She said, in a voice more mildly chiding than truly threatening. "This place is poison, and the longer you're here the more you will be tainted." 

"If you want us to leave just say it. Or make the walls bleed, Amityville Horror shit, but don't be a pussy about it," he growled. "And don't wear her face." 

Her gaze was impassive. "I never realized I could hurt you so much." 

He refused to wince and give this thing the satisfaction. "Stop it. Show me who you really are. What, are you scared?" 

She studied him a moment, cocking her head to the side like he'd once seen Jean do, and he loathed it. As soon as he could move he was going to rip it to pieces. "Bob told you there was no afterlife, not for people like us. But he also told you about the law of thermodynamics - that energy is never destroyed, simply transformed. Would it be so hard for you to believe I've transformed?" 

"You wanna kill me? Kill me! Don't feed me this bullshit." 

Her look became sad, a shade south of wistful. "It wasn't your fault." 

"What the fuck do you want from me?" It was hard to spit the words out. He was so angry he was shaking; there was  so much adrenaline in his system he could no longer feel the pain of healing from a thousand different cuts. 

"I'm trying to warn you. This is a gateway, and it grows more unstable all the time. They don't know - they don't understand what they're dealing with - but you know, don't you? Exposure to Bob - you can feel it more acutely than they can. You can see it - " 

"See what?" Good god, save him from chatty demons and their fucking cryptic speeches. 

"Evil." 

"I'm lookin' at it now." 

Her lips curved up in the faintest of smiles. "Perhaps you are." 

He still couldn't move, but now she was coming towards him, and the demon even had her walk down. The fucking bastard. "You know what scared me the most about you?" The demon pretending to be Jean said. "You didn't hold back. It seems stupid now - I finally let go, stopped holding back. I had no idea it was so exhilarating." She stopped in front of him, close enough that he could smell nothing but her, and she rested her forehead against his. He wanted to headbutt her/it, but he couldn't. He considered using his teeth, but no, he couldn't even do that. He was still frozen, as useless as a statue, and the frustration of it made him want to explode. He felt something wet trailing down his cheek, and he hoped it was blood. "It makes me wonder what else I missed." She pulled back slightly, and took his face in her hands. "Oh Logan, I'm so sorry." She kissed the tear running down his face. 

"I'm gonna kill you," he snarled, swallowing back a lump in his throat. Hate and sorrow were getting mixed together, and threatening to both overwhelm him. It was her scent, her touch; he couldn't deal with it and the hated thing cowering behind her memories. "Wearing her face won't save you." But it might make him hesitate for one crucial moment - and sometimes one moment was all it took. 

"Are you really strong enough to kill the thing you love, Logan?" She stared at him, and her expression transformed to wonderment. "My god. You already have." 


	5. Part 5

"What? What is that supposed to mean?" He demanded, but even as he said it, he didn't want to know - he didn't want an answer. 

But Jean, the fake Jean, trailed her fingers down his face, her skin scraping his stubble, and she looked straight into his eyes. He tried to stare her down, but she was not easily scared off. "You're an interesting paradox," she told him, gazing at him with a tender curiosity that made him want to scream. "You're so ready to fight demons, and yet you refuse to face your own." 

"This was a mistake," he snarled at it. "You'll pay for this." He meant for disguising itself as Jean ... didn't he? That's what he meant, wasn't it? Yes, of course it was ... 

He felt something deep inside his own mind twist, like a muscle spasm in his brain, and something flared in Jean's eyes, something red and hot, like a sudden explosion of fire - 

- and Logan woke up face down on the floor. 

He was tensed, ready for the pain to hit, but it didn't, and looking around he saw why: fingers of harsh, early morning light were bleeding around the edges of the living room curtain, letting him see the room in its stark glory. Only now did he realize the problem with the earth toned interior of the house was it never looked lived in; it was a cold alien's idea of what a Human needed. 

Logan shoved himself up to his knees, and saw his injuries had all been long healed, although he still wore his blood and the blood of the demons like a second skin. The right back leg of his boxers had been torn out as well, and existed pretty much as a few threads and a scant hope. 

He felt something like a head rush as he got to his feet, but it seemed to pass quickly, and didn't stop him as he staggered to Marcus's room. 

The door was still slightly ajar, and he peeked inside, expecting blood and guts - or perhaps just nothing, an emptiness as chilling as a massacre. But Marc was asleep on his back, sheet partially twisted around him, arm thrown over his eyes as the sun began to creep through his bedroom window. It certainly looked like he was breathing, and he didn't appear to be injured. He didn't smell or see blood. 

Logan waited until he was away from his door to breathe a sigh of relief, then went to check out his room out of curiosity. His door was open, and while his floor was miraculously intact, there was still demon blood on the walls. Obviously they didn't do windows. 

He went and had a long bath, fighting to scrub off all the blood, and figure out what had happened. The gore was off before he figured out what had happened, and he had all but given up on it. Evil thing, trying to scare him and get him to leave - second verse same as the first. He wondered if they had gone after Marcus - did he have any weird dreams? 

But it wasn't a dream. He'd been attacked and hurt, and the blood on his bedroom wall proved he'd hurt something. And the Jean thing had left him in the living room. 

He couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something, but he couldn't even begin to guess what. 

Walking back to his bedroom, he heard the birds twittering outside, their shadows darting in the warm light outside the curtains, and he wondered once more how evil could so easily blur the lines and disguise itself. Although it would have been nice if it was always out there, drooling slime and oozing pus, being so overtly evil it was impossible to ignore, it almost never was. Since when was anything so easily cut and dried? It would have made life much easier. 

Hell, was he a good guy? He'd be the first to admit he wasn't. But he wasn't a bad guy either - he was just someone in between. Like most people, he supposed, and like most evil things. Maybe that's what gave him the edge in finding these things and fighting them -  they had more in common than he would ever care to admit. 

He'd finished getting dressed when he heard Marc moving around ( or at least he assumed it was Marc ), and he went out to the kitchen to get himself a beer . He supposed he should make himself some breakfast, but he wasn't hungry; he was just confused, and irritated because of it. 

Maybe they should leave. He didn't want to get Marc killed. Unbeknownst to Marcus, he already had back in Montana - only Bob intervention had reversed the trend. Did he want to stick around and watch him get killed permanently? 

But Marcus wouldn't go. He was a stubborn asshole, and it really did take one to know one. 

Logan was on his second beer by the time Marcus joined him in the kitchen. "Man, you didn't even make me some French toast?" He complained sarcastically, searching the fridge. 

"Hear anything weird last night?" 

"What, you already make cole slaw of your mattress?" 

Logan scowled at him as he stood up, shaking a carton of orange juice and giving him a smart ass grin. "No. Our big bad paid me a visit last night." 

"Seriously? Fuck you - I'd never sleep through a fight." 

"You would if it wanted you to. It's fucking with me, I don't know why ..." 

"Your charming personality?" 

But even as Logan glowered at him, he realized he had answered his own question. "Bob. Jean mentioned I was more sensitive to evil 'cause of my exposure to Bob. They picked up the Bob thing on me, I guess." 

"Jean?" 

"It took Jean's form. As I said, it's fucking with me." 

"But you didn't actually fuck it, right?" At the molten glare Logan gave him for that, Marc at least had the decency to take a step back and raise his hands in surrender. "Just kiddin' man - making with the funny over here. So what happened?" 

Rather than just simply tell him, he also showed him his bedroom. Marcus looked at the blood spattered walls and whistled low. "Hell of a wet dream." 

He ignored the bad joke. "They were here; I didn't just dream it. I also woke up in the living room, where I was last talking to the Jean thing." He had to add thing, because he'd be damned if he was going to call it "her". It wasn't her, and he loathed it for thinking that even for a second he would be fooled, nonetheless stealing her form. He wished there was some way he could kill it twice. 

Marc gave him a curious look. "But it repaired the floor, and didn't hurt you in any other way? Beyond gettin' your leg skinned and a thousand paper cuts?" 

He shook his head. "Not that I'm aware of. I know this sounds completely fucked up, but - " 

"Hey man, it's cool - life is fucked up. I believe you." But then he looked around the room once more, and frowned to himself. "So why didn't they come after me? Oh, I get it - it's 'cause I'm a brother, right? If it ain't bad enough they're demons, they're racist fucking demons too. Motherfuckers too scared to go after the black man." 

Logan couldn't help it; he laughed and shook his head, only to find Marc giving him that smart ass, Cheshire Cat grin again. He had no idea why he wanted to make him laugh about this, but Logan was grateful for it. Not that he'd ever admit it, of course. "I don't know," he said, playing along. "Maybe they figure you're not staying long. After all, black guys are always the first to die in movies, aren't they?" 

He snorted derisively. "Just another way The Man keeps us down." 

"Who is The Man? I've always been curious." 

"Colonel Sanders. He was really Reticulan, you know. Chicken gobbling, racist alien bastard." 

Logan smirked as he went back out into the living room. "You and Bob both get your scripts from the same place, don't you?" 

"No. Some goddamn Australian guy writes his." 

"Which explains his constant references to dingoes." 

"And mentioning beatin' that Crocodile Hunter guy shitless with a bowling bag full of bricks." 

"Oh, well we all want to do that." 

"Damn right." After a decent pause, Marc asked the million dollar question. "What did demon Jean want?" 

The obvious answer was for them to leave, but Logan had a feeling it was more complicated than that. But how? He had to stop guessing and find a solid basis for his intuitions ... but if they were logical, they wouldn't be gut feelings would they? Ah shit, this was all messed up. 

As if to prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt, there was a loud knock on the front door. 

Marcus raised an eyebrow at him. "Since when do the bad guys knock?" 

"Got me. Were you expectin' company?" 

Marcus went off to get his glasses to protect him from the sunlight, and Logan went to the door, ready for trouble but not popping his claws just yet. Because seriously, what evil fucks knocked? Save for Amway salesmen. 

He opened the door, squinting briefly at the sudden influx of harsh light, and saw, standing there, a rather ordinary looking man. He was maybe thirty, wearing a short sleeved blue shirt open at the neck, with his employee i.d. badge clipped to his breast pocket, and faded blue jeans with obviously oil stains on the lower legs. His neatly combed short brown hair was lightening from exposure to the sun, and his pale blue eyes had a sort of cheerful emptiness that Logan mentally ascribed to cheerleaders who had inhaled far too many polyurethane fumes from their pom poms. "Hi there. Settling in okay?" The man asked. He had a slight Okie accent. 

"Uh, I guess," he replied hesitantly. What the fuck was this clown, the welcome wagon? 

"I'm Travis Meeks," he announced cheerfully, just in case he hadn't read the badge. "If you guys are ready, I'm here to give you the grand tour of the place. Just to get you oriented." 

Logan stared at him for a very long moment, and wondered if guided tours of hell weren't just the least bit ironic. 

10 

    It looked like Travis had brought the same jeep as the night before, but in some spasm of white's man guilt - or perhaps company policy - he was the driver on this little excursion deep into the heart of Santo Marco's oil fields. 

It was a brutally hot and bright day already, the pitiless light washing out the landscape into several related hues of brown and orange, with an occasional strip of chalky red and sprig of green to try and break up the monotony. It was like driving into a half finished, rejected Georgia O'Keefe painting. 

Travis kept up a cheery, non-stop monologue, but he became background noise to Logan, the annoying, empty chatter of a myna bird. He'd ended up borrowing a pair of Marc's sunglasses, because he got tired of squinting, and he could feel his eyeballs shriveling in their sockets from the heat. 

Santo Marco was more an idea than an actual place - enclaves of houses and buildings huddled together protectively, trying to make their own shade in this furnace of a land. The houses of the oil workers were split levels that could have been at home anywhere in the States, while the locals seemed to have what amounted to fancy shacks, but luckily they lived in their own partitioned areas so a class war couldn't erupt. 

There was a "downtown" - a strip mall equivalent containing shops and an astonishingly clean looking bar, and a small "plaza" containing a water fountain made of tiers, four discs of grey marble not so much spewing water as dribbling it right now. Marc whispered to him sarcastically, "Shouldn't that be a fountain of oil?" It would make a hell of a lot more sense, and it was probably a more plentiful resource than clean water around these parts. 

But beyond these were desolate wastes and rolling hills, some of rock and some yellow green from the wild grasses, and the nothingness spread out towards a dust clogged horizon filled with nothing but oil derricks. They grew closer at a snail's pace, like these were in fact mountains hewn from metal as opposed to stone. He could feel the drills pounding through the ground from here. 

It was about mile two when they drove past what looked like a cluster of clapboard shacks and houses so scoured by sand they were little better than huts themselves. It looked like a long abandoned housing project, surrounded completely by a high wire fence, topped with razor wire. There were bright yellow and black "Danger:Keep Out!" signs plastered all over it, in three different languages. The gate was shut by rusty chains and padlocks, and it gave off an air of abandonment that was eerie. 

No, that wasn't what was chilling. It was something else, something he couldn't put his finger on - a pervasive evil rising from the place like a subtle stench. And Travis was giving it a wide berth, taking a road on a slight incline that made it look as if the whole discarded town was falling away beneath them. "What is that place?" He shouted to Travis, pointing down at the ghost town. Logan found it almost impossible to pull his eyes away from it. Even from here, he could see what must have been toys laying in the middle of rutted paths, as if suddenly dropped by careless children, but now so coated with dust they were barely distinguishable from the lumps of desiccated plants and cairns of dried animal bones, still roughly in the shape of the things they had once been. 

"Oh, that's just where we have the transformers and other electrical equipment," Travis shouted back. "Dangerous shit like that." 

But he was lying - well, not about the dangerous shit. But about everything else. 

Logan stared at the abandoned housing project as it receded behind them, and he could feel the pull and repulsion at the very same time. He wanted to go to it; he wanted to run far away from it. 

As he looked back at Travis, he saw that there was suddenly someone in the passenger seat: Jean, looking over the seat at him, and smiling slyly. It was obvious that Travis didn't see her, or Marcus ( he hadn't pulled his guns, had he ). He stared at her, and wondered if that lost city was where she dwelled. 

Marc nudged him, and when Logan glanced at him, he jerked his head back in the direction of the ghost town, wordlessly asking if they should check that out later. Logan nodded, and looked back towards the front seat. 

Jean was gone. He wondered if they had just decided to do what she ( it ) wanted them to do. 

*** 

    By the time Travis had taken them to the company commissary, in the shadow of the oil wells, Logan had become convinced that he and Marcus were stuck in some distaff version of "The Stepford Wives". 

Every time Travis introduced them to fellow employees - almost all rugged men of one variety or another, muscled to some degree - there was a sort of vacuousness to them that made Logan start humming the Sex Pistol's "Pretty Vacant" ( "We're pretty, pretty vacant, and we don't care.."). If Bob were here, he'd probably have been singing it. They seemed content in their emptiness, and he almost envied them. 

They had a rough, grueling job in one of the more inhospitable landscapes he had seen for some time. But even those men who had angry red sunburns on the back of their necks seemed strangely sedate; there, and yet not quite. They gave no sign of being possessed - and could so many men be possessed at once? - so he assumed they were all stoned on petrochemical fumes, or the company gave one hell of a perks package for a job well done. 

But on the off chance drugs were involved, he and Marcus were careful not to eat or drink anything offered at the commissary. 

Once they escaped Travis and got outside the ring of white quonset huts that made up the company area outside the oil wells, Marcus said, "Are you getting a creep factor here?" 

"Deafcon one creep factor," he assured him. 

"Do you think they know of the demony goodness around here?" 

He could only shrug as they looked out at the washed out blue sky looming over the toasted orange and brown landscape between the metal latticework of the derricks. "This is all fucked up. Pick up anyone in infrared who might be a demon or a mutant?" 

He shook his head. "Nope. Smell one?" 

"Nope." He didn't bother to say he had seen the Jean demon again; no point. He was being fucked with, led on, and he didn't know why. He knew in good faith he should warn Marcus, but of what? Warn him they were singling him out? Maybe Marcus was right - maybe they were racists demons. 

"Think we should go back to that town you saw?" Marcus said, just as his cell phone rang. 

He reached into the front pocket of his safari shirt and pulled out his phone, glancing around warily for any eavesdroppers before flipping it open and saying, "Yeah?' 

Logan could easily hear the familiar voice on the other end of the line. "Hello? Is this Marcus?" 

"Yep. Hold on." Marc tossed him the phone without warning, but Logan caught it easily. "What you got, Wes?" He wondered. 

He didn't seem too perturbed by the sudden shift in people on the line. "Bad news. You need to leave now, and I'm serious - set the macho bullshit aside." 

"It's not bullshit," he snapped, before he realized what he was saying. "Would you leave, Wesley?" 

"Absolutely. And come back as soon as I had the right people to beat this thing back." 

"What is this thing?" 

"I'm still working on pinpointing it, but I'll need some more information from you to do that. What I have now indicates there's some kind of mystical sinkhole in the area." 

"Mystical sinkhole? What does that mean? Like a ... a rip in the dimension?" To escape the look Marc was giving him, Logan rubbed his dry eyes. 

"It's not quite as straightforward as that. It may eventually become a rift, though; I can't really rule that out. I can tell you that I have discovered that demons have been fleeing the area in droves for the past several weeks. But since there were never that many demons in the area to begin with - only certain types enjoy civil wars - it never registered on our radar." 

"But isn't demons runnin' off a good thing?" He asked, and for some reason he looked off towards the road. And there was Jean standing there, arms crossed over her chest, head cocked at a curious angle. She was in the black leather uniform he last saw her in, but she had unzipped the jacket, so it now exposed the red shirt she was wearing beneath. Somehow he didn't think Jean had ever worn a tank top like that, nonetheless one that exposed that much cleavage. She smiled at him, and her lips were the color of arterial blood. 

"Sometimes. But sometimes they're like rats on a ship." 

"Harbingers." 

"Quite. And while I'm looking into the possibilities now, my best guess is something is creating this sinkhole, and is trying to use it to come through into this world." 

"Something bad." 

"Obviously." 

Marcus was standing off to one side, looking around and trying to listen to the conversation. Jean continued to stare at him and smile, as if she heard every single thing, even from her distance. Of course, Logan had no problem believing that. "She said this was a gateway." 

"She? Oh, the dead woman?" Wesley grunted darkly. "Well, I guess that confirms my theory then. It also means you can forget what I said about leaving - you can't anymore." 

"Why not?" He really didn't like the dismissive tone of his voice. 

"Because it has seen you; it knows of you. If it wants you to stay, you're staying, and since   
it's already shown itself to you, it wants you to stay. Although I must admit I can't fathom why. No offense." 

"None taken." The Jean thing mouthed something at him. It looked like she said "Who says it's about you?" but he preferred looking at the ground rather than her. He was so angry he could feel a vein in his left temple throbbing, but he couldn't lose it now; he had to stay on topic and figure this damn thing out. "Could this thing be affecting everyone in the area? We just met some of the oil workers, and there is something majorly fucked up about them." 

"Such as what?" 

"I can't really explain it. They seem Stepford Wife - ish, happy and hollow. Going through the motions." 

Wesley paused briefly as he considered that, and this time Logan heard a strange noise in the background, like an ... espresso machine? What the fuck - was he calling him from a coffee shop? "Do they smell dead? Does Marcus read them as cold?" 

Logan started slightly, and found Jean smiling at him in a way that suggested she was trying not to laugh. "Are you sayin' they're zombies?" 

"No fuckin' way," Marcus gasped, although more in general shock than actual denial. Jean's laughing eyes looked more red than brown. 

"I'm just asking," Wes replied, as if he had just asked him if the weather was nice there. Maybe that's why the few Watchers he'd met were all British - they had perfected being blasé about the most extraordinarily fucked up things. 

"They smelled like men - living men - and registered as normal to Marc." 

"Damn right," Marcus agreed. 

"If it can alter perceptions, it's possible these men are living in a truly alternate state - or it is manipulating both your mutations, so you can't see the truth right in front of you." 

Logan was going to deny it, but suddenly the smell of Jean hit his nostrils, and he realized Wes was right. This thing had made him smell Jean, feel her touch - bastard. It could manipulate his senses, the one thing he counted on not to betray him, and if it could screw with him, it could screw with Marc. Shit. "Is there any way to counteract that?" 

Wesley paused for too long before he said, "I'll research it, see what I can find." A polite way of saying no, Logan surmised. "Has Marcus seen anything unusual? Beyond the spotlight last night." 

"No." Logan almost told him how he was "attacked" last night, but didn't. 

"Are you still seeing the dead woman?" 

As if she heard him ask, Jean waved politely at them. "She's right here." 

Marcus looked around, and asked quietly,"Where?" 

Logan pointed down the road, as Wesley did a Mr. Obvious thing over the phone. "That's not good." 

"No fucking kidding," he snapped, as Marc started down the road, presumably to get a better look. Where the fuck was Bob when he needed him? And that's when it occurred to him. "Is it targeting me 'cause it knows I've associated with the Drai'shajan?" 

Jean moved to the left, to be seen beyond Marc, and gave him a thumbs up gesture, grinning like she was proud of him. Wes, for his part, was quite for what seemed to be a very long time. Long enough for someone's espresso to be made, anyways. "The Drai'shajan?" He repeated, like he'd said he was a personal friend of Winston Churchill. "You're saying you know them?" 

"Yeah, so do you - Bob. You didn't know?" 

Again, the long pause. Marcus was now looking at him, making a "Where is she?" gesture with his hands. Jean was standing right beside him, looking at them both with a bemused expression. He though about making a gesture for Marc to hit out to his left, to see if he could make contact, but that was stupid - he could never hit a figment of his imagination. If that's what she was ... but he saw Mariko like that, thanks to Sygratha, but it was actually her - her personality, the intangibles that made her who she was, even though he couldn't consciously remember those thing: Sygratha dragged them out of his mind anyways. But this very much wasn't Jean; this was something using her form to get to him. It had the physical aspects down, but not the intangibles, not the personality. He wondered if that was some kind of clue. 

"Bob is - " Wesley began in utter disbelief, then scoffed at himself. "Good lord, that's so illogical ... and yet, it explains everything about him. Why didn't I see that before? We could have gone to him for help. Not that I trust him, mind you - " 

"What does that mean anyways? Drai'shajan?" Logan gestured for Marc to come back as he wondered why Bob had never told them what he was. But then again, he'd never exactly come out and admitted it to him either. 

"It depends on the dialect. The most common usage translates it out to "The Fallen", but in a more obscure argot it can mean "Trickster". In either case, it's a myth that many demons use to scare each other." 

"Are you serious?" Bob being referred to as a trickster didn't seem that surprising. 

"The Drai'shajan is supposedly the "lost" Higher Being, one of the Powers That Be. It - he - was supposedly kicked out of the Higher Realms for some infraction or another, and was condemned to Earth in a demon form. Somehow - how depends on the story - he regained some of his powers, but remained in demon disguise. He is perceived as a thorn in the side of gods and demons alike, simply because his motivations remain murky, and he has never chosen a clear side. The only sure thing is the appearance of the Drai'shajan will ruin your plans - whatever you're doing, the Drai'shajan guarantees it's over." 

That certainly did sound like Bob - the ultimate buzzkill. But usually in a good way. Marcus said, "I'm gonna get us a jeep." Logan nodded, and saw that Jean had followed Marc back here. She remained out of arm's reach, but he could smell her quite clearly over the scent of the oil wells, and he almost couldn't hear anything over the roaring of the blood in his ears. He turned his back on her and looked down at the landscape, trying to find that lost city. 

"I can't believe he was under our nose all this time - " Wes went on, talking to himself. 

"If we can find the place where this mystical sinkhole is located, can we close it up?" Logan asked, interrupting him. 

"That's the only place where you can close it up. The problem is we have to know who or what is behind this to know how to close it properly. Otherwise we could just make it worse." 

"That's possible?" 

That made him pause. "Well, in theory it's possible." 

Jean stepped into his line of vision. "This is only the tip of the iceberg," she said, in a strangely kind way. 

He glared at her and gave her the finger, which only made her grace him with a sad, almost patronizing smile. "Marc and I are gonna check out what we think is the hot spot. If you want, I can keep the line open and give you a runnin' commentary." 

Wesley sighed heavily. "Fine, but I really don't think you should go. You can't trust a single thing you see, hear, smell ... especially if you're being targeted. It wants something from you, or it wants you to do something for it." 

Jean stepped aside as Marcus drove up in the jeep, the tires kicking up gritty clouds of orange dust. "What could it want me to do?" He asked, glancing up at her. She gave him a hard smile that didn't reach her eyes. 

Wesley paused for what seemed a suspicious length of time. "What you do best, Logan." 

He closed his eyes, feeling like a fool. Yes, of course, what other good was he? He killed things; he killed a lot of things. He opened his eyes to see Marcus looking at him expectantly from the driver's seat, and Jean lounging in the back, seemingly waiting for him as well. "It doesn't have to be this way," she told him. "We can trade. What they want for what you want. Not all demons are duplicitous." 

He wished he could ask what she thought he wanted, but not with Wes on the line, and Marc gesturing to him impatiently. But she must have read his mind, because she said, "Her. She's not really dead, Logan - you can have her back; we can make that happen." 

"Are you still there?" Wes asked. 

"What's the deal?" Jean continued. 

Marc said, "Hey, you catatonic all the sudden?" 

"The deal is this: take her place. Reality cannot become too unbalanced. So if you want her, you step into the void where she is supposed to be. Do you think you can do that?" Her gaze was truly curious, as if she couldn't begin to guess his answer. 

Logan mentally reminded himself demons lied; it was what they were best at. And yet ... what if they could bring her back? What if they had that power? 

What if they could do what Bob wasn't here to do? 

"I'm here," he told Wesley, as he easily vaulted into the passenger seat of the jeep. 

Most likely it was lying; Logan knew that. But if there was any chance at all he could get Jean back, didn't he have to try? She never should have died, not like that. 

His life for hers? He didn't even have to think twice about it. If he could trust them, he would make that deal in a heartbeat. 


	6. Part 6

11 

    It was amazing - five hundred yards from the place, and it was like someone threw wet wool blankets over their faces; a sense of doom attempting to suffocate them. 

Marc pulled the jeep over about seventy yards from the place just so they could catch their breath. How fucking weird was that? It was like the air got thick, turned into a semi-gelatinous liquid that the lungs didn't want to process. He wanted to ask the Jean thing about that, but she was no longer in the back seat, which figured. 

Wesley seemed to get his panties in a bunch when he couldn't get him to respond right away, but Logan couldn't give a fuck. Was he here, panting like he'd just around the world twice? No - he was in a fucking Starbucks in L.A. having a tea and biscotti, surfing demon sites on his laptop. 

Logan guessed that if the demon was serious about a swap, things would get easier, and he was right. Soon breathing became easier, not just for him either, and they were able to walk up to the ghost town. So that's what a mystical sinkhole felt like? Nasty. 

Up close, the fence looked taller and yet more insubstantial somehow, like it was nothing more than a spider web. But the chain he sliced through with his claws was substantial, if slightly flimsy from all the rust. 

Walking through the gate into the town was like walking into a graveyard; the place was even rank with the smell of putrefying flesh and leaf mold, even though he didn't see a scrap of flesh or a single living plant. The air was so thick with dust the sky looked sepia tone. 

"Do you see anything?" Wesley asked. 

"Other than nothing? No." Logan replied curtly. Something about this place was setting him on edge; it was like chewing on tinfoil. 

The rusty hinges of doors creaked in the breeze, and shreds of garbage were picked up in dust devils and scattered among the empty alleys of the worn hovels. Walking down the wide dirt street that separated the crumbling wooden buildings from one another, he felt like they were gunfighters in an old Western. Except he was carrying a cell phone rather than a Colt. Marc had one of his guns out, though, but only the one - his other hand hung loose and open at his side. It took Logan a moment, but he realized that Marc had lost his gloves - he probably left them in the jeep. He had no idea if his toxin would work on demons or not, but obviously Marcus was willing to find out. 

"Where the fuck are we going?" Marc asked. A good question. 

"I don't know," Logan admitted, then held the phone away, and shouted, "You want me? Come and get me!" 

Marcus looked at him askance. "Talkin' to dead Jean?" 

Logan shrugged. "Any of 'em - I don't care." As he brought the phone up to his ear, Wesley said, "You know, provoking the demons isn't always the wisest course of action." 

"Wanna tell me how else I'm gonna find 'em?" 

"Look for a church." 

Logan did as he asked, but it was impossible to tell the function of any of these homes, caught in a slow motion collapse. "Demons dig churches?" 

"They love the irony." 

Knowing Helga, he should have figured. But as they both looked for anything that might resemble a church among these ruins, he caught sight of Jean standing in the open doorway of a large rectangular shop at the end of the street. Upon seeing he noticed, she gave him that slinky smile, and retreated inside. "Dead ahead," he muttered to Marcus, jerking his head in the appropriate direction. 

Marcus nodded, but pointed out, "That ain't no church." 

"I know, but I just got the head's up." 

"So you got a response," Wes said, sounding disapproving. "You're hard to kill, Logan, not impossible to kill . Don't forget that." 

"I haven't." That was always a problem, wasn't it? He was never allowed to forget that, no matter what, this probably wouldn't kill him. 

Marcus aimed his gun dead center at the doorway, and asked, "She still there?" 

"No." 

"Shit." 

As they neared the building, Logan had to put his hand over his nose and mouth. "Gettin' hit, bud?" Marcus wondered. 

He shook his head. "It smells like a fucking landfill in there." As soon as he was used to it, he removed his hand. It was still a stench that threatened to knock him flat, but he thought he could hold it together. 

"Bodies?" Wes asked. Mister Cheerful. 

"No. It's decay, but it's not ... human." 

"Ah fuck," Marcus said, face screwing up in disgust. "I think I'm startin' to get it. Are you sure it ain't dead bodies? It smells like something died to me." 

Logan shook his head vehemently. "No Human scent." 

Once they were almost upon the building and the stench was beyond overpowering and hovering at the threshold of the physical, Logan could see it was the remains of a store. The front windows on either side of the doorway were so coated in the everpresent orange-brown dust that they looked like a continuation of the wall. But just beyond the doorway the floor looked like black marble, and he wondered when stores did that. He got his answer when he reached the entryway. 

"What the fuck?" Marcus exclaimed. 

It wasn't marble, or tile, or anything as prosaic as that - it was dead bugs. Thousands and thousands of dead insects - flies and wasps, bees and beetles, ants and mosquito hawks, moths and centipedes, spiders and scorpions. They made an ankle deep carpet of corpses, their desiccated carapaces, wings, and exoskeletons gleaming like steel in spite of the dust. 

"What is it?" Wes asked. 

"I think I found out why the bugs ain't so bad here. They're all dead." He took a tentative step forward, and the insects crunched under foot like dead leaves. They smelled like parchment and sour venom. 

Marcus made a noise of disgust, and said, "Have I ever mentioned how much I hate bugs?" 

"You're nicknamed after one." 

"Scorpions are members of the arachnid family-that's different," he insisted, trying to find a bug free spot on the floor to walk on. He didn't find a clear spot, so he had to step on bugs, and grimaced as they crackled beneath his feet. 

The smell was far more pungent in here, but it wasn't the dead bugs, or even the occasional lumps of feathers that could only be the remains of dead birds. It was the cases of blackened compost that used to hold fruits and vegetables, the back refrigerator case that once, long ago, held meat. It was all far beyond rotted now - it was decomposed, putrid and corrupted. It brought the insects in, but only to their death. But how were they killed? They never even got close - they all died the moment they crossed the threshold. 

"Think they used some major DDT?" Marc wondered. 

"Get out now," Wes demanded, in his best stern headmaster voice. "There are things that ki - " A burst of static suddenly cut through the line, distorting what words could come through. " - energ - st - ting - soul - " The phone line them went stone dead, and Logan wasn't completely surprised. As soon as Wes got some idea what they were up against, the bad guys weren't going to allow him to share that info. It was typical, really. Logan closed the phone and tucked it into his pocket. 

They walked down what must have been the cereal aisle at one time, giving up the crunching carpet of insect bodies for dusty floor. Cartoon animals and the airbrushed faces of unbearably cute children leered at them from boxes so covered in grit they could have been bricks in a crumbling wall, and the figures those of people trapped inside. 

Just as Logan was wondering if the choice of a store was somehow ironic, Marcus brought a hand to the side of his head, and said, "I think my infrared just futzed out on me." 

Logan could now see Jean sitting on top of a counter which much have once held goods from the bakery - now it was simply a terrarium for black and green mold, growing as thick as fur on the inside of the glass case. "I can believe that," he said, glaring at her. 

But she gave him that big dumb smile, eyes alight with a mirth that was cruel. She let Marc see her this time, as his gun hand shot up, but he seemed to freeze awkwardly, and Jean said, "Would you like to tell your friend why bullets wouldn't work on me even if he could get off a shot?" 

Logan really hated her/it. He couldn't wait to kill it. "This thing seems to have some minor Bob like powers," he reluctantly told him. "We ain't gonna get it with guns." 

She looked very smug, very pleased with herself, like he had passed some test. "Very good." 

She must have let him go, because Marcus lowered the gun and put it back in the holster beneath his shirt, but with a snarling contempt. "Was Jean ever this much of a bitch?" He growled. 

"Not that I know about." 

The Jean thing chuckled, swinging her legs out over the front of the counter. She crossed them in a manner that might be considered coquettish under any other circumstances. "You really know how to hurt a girl, don't you Logan? Minor Bob like powers." 

"Is that what this is about? You're fucked off at Bob, so you decide to take it out on me?" 

She chuckled again, a throaty laugh that was more haughty than anything else. "Oh please. I don't hate Bob. He makes it hard to hate him, doesn't he? So charming and laid back." 

"But he's involved in this somehow." 

"Let's just say I'm intrigued at the idea of a mortal vessel for a higher being. It never worked for me, and believe me, I tried." She placed her hands on her knees, and was probably attempting to look chummy, but failed miserably. "Now I know you want me to get down to business." 

"Please. This place reeks." 

"You killed them, didn't you?" Marcus interjected, scowling at her. "You killed all the mutants, not the fucking oil company." 

She barely twitched an eyebrow at him. "Actually, they were imprisoning mutants here. They had some secret deal with the government to help in the creation of mutants supersoldiers, ones who could get killed with no one caring. Metropolitan buying them up hardly slowed them down - after all, didn't they all share the same lobbyists and friends in very high places? But once they disturbed the seals holding us back, we liberated them. Don't you think you should be thanking us?" 

"If you liberated them, where the fuck are they?" Logan wondered. He had a bad feeling about the answer. 

She gave him a smile that was so oily he felt slimed. "I said we liberated them, not let them go." 

"What?" Marcus asked, but he looked to Logan, not expecting a straight answer out of Jean. 

It was just as Logan feared. "They killed them all right. Freedom through death." 

"Oh, you make it sound so cold. We had to eat." 

"You ate them?" Marc replied in disbelief. 

It was her turn to scowl. "Don't be crude." 

Logan looked back at the carpet of dead insects, the scattered remnants of dead birds, and recalled one of the words that Wesley had almost spit out: 'energ-'. "You're one of those energy suckers, ain't you?" 

The look she gave him suggested she didn't care for the word "sucker". "Everything feeds on other things. It's what you'd call the cycle of life, yes? And mutants have much more energy than normals. Those stiffs are hardly a snack." 

Marcus tensed beside him, radiating rage, but Logan knew there was no point. It was in charge here - at least for now - and all the anger and indignation in the world wouldn't help them. If there was one thing he'd learned dealing with these demons assholes, it was that they all had fatal weaknesses. The problem was finding it before you were stuck with them. "So they are zombies." 

"The mutants? Oh no, we were fond of them. But the normals? Well, what else are they good for?" 

"Why keep up this charade?" Marcus asked. His shoulders were rigid and he spit out the words like bullets, trying hard to swallow his rage. "Why keep the pumps goin' and the company in oil?" 

"Why not, dear boy?" 

"They don't want to attract attention until they're ready," Logan opined, giving her a hard stare. He could no longer see the red behind her eyes, but they seemed endlessly and fathomlessly black, like tunnels burrowing into the center of the earth. "And they almost blew it with the whole Ethan Casey thing." 

"I like you, Logan - I see why Bob picked you." She jumped off the counter and started slinking towards them, head down and eyes forward, like a panther. He almost expected her to change shape. "You have no idea what happened, but you expect me to spit it out." 

"I expect you to tell me what you want from me." 

"Don't you mean us, kemo sabe?" Marcus pointed out. Logan had hoped he wouldn't say that. 

But Jean ignored him, and so did he, although he hated to. But demons would use other people as weapons as much as anything else. "We're not demons," she said chidingly. "We're not quite gods either. We're sort of hard to explain ..." 

"Demi-gods?" Marcus suggested. 

She snapped her fingers and pointed at him. "Close enough. We belonged to this land long before you people started messing it up, and we were appreciated by those who lived here." 

"As long as they sacrificed a virgin to you every once in a while?" Logan replied sarcastically. 

She gave him a deadly "we are not amused" sort of look. "Everything has a price. Of all people, you should understand that." She then smiled faintly, as if at a private joke, and looked more like the real Jean than she had any right to. "Through a series of misunderstandings, our group was divided, and those ... misguided enough to go over to the other side turned violent. We defended ourselves of course, but there were some miscalculations, and we were all condemned to a side dimension." 

"Misunderstandings, self defense - you equivocate so much, you should be a politician." Marcus snapped. 

Jean continued to ignore him. "When the company shattered the seals that bound us elsewhere, we were free to walk again, but so - sadly - was the other side. They possess the last seal that keeps us from completely crossing over, and since we are evenly matched, we cannot retrieve it." 

"And this is where I come in?" Logan asked, bored already. 

"You mean we, jackass," Marcus insisted, sounding like he was really getting pissed off. He couldn't blame him. 

"Indeed. They have some sort of "code" that prohibits them from hurting Humans, so you can go and fetch it for us." 

Logan glared at the Jean thing, almost finding its arrogance funny. "No I ain't. I have no reason to let you walk the earth and do whatever the fuck you want on a wider scale." 

"We have no intention of doing so, and besides, we can't. Even without the seals in place, we're bound to the earth in this location." 

"This is bullshit," Marcus interrupted. "If they don't hurt Humans, than why not send your zombie buddies after it?" 

"Zombies are dead Humans; meat puppets. They don't count." 

Logan sighed and rubbed his eyes, already tired of this. "Even if I buy this, I ain't doin' a thing until I get Jean back." 

"What?" Marc exclaimed. He snapped his head around so fast Logan was surprised he hadn't broken his own neck. 

Jean gave him that sly grin again, like this was a joke only she understood. "But we can't bring her back until the seal is removed. If you want her back, you have to work for it." 

"Don't fall for this," Marcus insisted crossly. "These are lying shits who want you to do their dirty work for them. They won't give you Jean back; they'll just kill you too." 

"That's part of the deal," he muttered, staring at the Jean thing. "Isn't it?" 

Her expression remained neutral, but her eyes seemed to glow with mirth. "It is. And we don't lie, Mister Drury - we are not demons or gods." 

Marcus threw his arms up in a frustrated shrug. "You made a deal with these fucks, is that it? Knowing what they are, and after they attacked you?! Use your fucking head, Logan!" 

Jean gave him a strange look, painted mouth curving down into a violent frown. "Attacked him? We never attacked him!" 

And maybe the strangest thing was, Logan believed her. They didn't attack him - they weren't the ones. Which meant - if she wasn't lying - the other group, the ones that supposedly wouldn't hurt Humans, had done so. So was that not hurting Humans bit a lie ... or was there something else going on? 

Logan suddenly realized they were talking to the wrong bad guys. 

"Bullshit!" Marcus snapped. "You sent some - " 

"Where is this seal exactly?" He interrupted. "What does it look like?" Marcus gave him a hard, open handed hit on the upper arm, and if anyone else had done that under any other circumstances, he'd have taken their head off and used it as a bowling ball. 

"It's a marble crest, buried in an area beyond Plano da Noite called Alcance de Mitnal. Considering your sensitivity to supernatural energy, I'm sure you'll find it easily." 

"And your fellow demi-gods are sure to show up and make a stink about it," Logan replied, trying to swallow his rage. He was being played for what, exactly - a demi-god civil war? This was such bullshit. 

"Certainly. But they won't harm you." 

"And of course you're tellin' us the complete truth." Marc snarled, hands curling into fists at his side. If the opportunity ever arose, he was prepared to see if his venom would work on a creature like her. 

She made a dismissive gesture with her hand, and turned her back on them. It would have been the perfect time to try and attack her, but both of them were rooted to the spot in the aisle, between the shelves of ancient cereal bars and brick like boxes of Pop Tarts. Logan tried to think of a more undignified place to die, but could only come up with that truck stop men's room he was blasted into by the semi that one time, when he was helping Elena and Alex out. "Believe or not - that is your choice." She pulled herself back up onto the former bakery display case, and only once she perched there did she bother to face them and let them go. "I have simply told you what you need to know. But you should also know this - there is no leaving Santo Marco without our consent. We let you in; it is up to us to let you out." 

Marcus made a low growling noise in his throat, but before he could tell her to go fuck herself or whatever he was going to do, Logan grabbed his arm, and snapped, "Yeah, we got the message darlin'. Now we have to go find some stupid marble seal." He had to use almost all his strength to get Marc to turn around with him, but Marcus yanked his arm away violently and started towards the front of the store without his help. 

"There's a good boy," Jean said. He could hear the smug smile in her voice, and it made him want to run back up the aisle and lunge for her, claws extended. But he probably wouldn't even get a foot before she fucked him over in some deeply unpleasant way. 

Once again they crunched through the carpet of bugs, and he only wondered for a moment how they could have extracted energy from bodies as tiny as those. Honestly, he didn't want to know. 

They were just beyond the store's suffocating shadow when Marcus rounded on him, face contorted in fury. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" 

"Look, I can't tell -  " 

"You motherfucking well can!" He roared, spittle flying from his lips. "If you think I'm gonna let you throw your life away on some half - assed deal with a fuckin' demon, you're wrong!" 

He glared at him, trying desperately to hold his temper in check. "I know how this supernatural shit works, okay? Trust me - I know what I'm doing." 

"But you can't tell me?" 

"Not here," he said, and jerked his head back towards the store. He then started walking down the dusty main street, now acutely aware of the devastation that had left this place stripped bare. The bones that made depressions in the dirt were the remains of animals - and people - that dropped where they stood when this thing - things - finally emerged. They never even had a chance, did they? He wondered how many of them were mutants, and if any of them had any idea what was happening. He could taste death and grit in the back of his throat. 

Marcus followed him, but he could almost feel the resentment coming off of him like a scent. He really wanted to kick his ass, and he couldn't blame him. Logan felt like he deserved a thorough ass kicking. 

They were within sight of the open front gate when Marcus said, "Did you really think you could get her back?" 

"Don't start, okay?" 

He didn't take the hint. "This is no time to start thinkin' with your dick." 

"I'm not," he growled. But then what was he thinking with? He decided to change the subject. "If there are two groups fightin' each other, and you find yourself caught in the middle, what do you do?" 

Marcus thought about it before responding. "Play 'em against one another. Optimally, both sides will destroy the other and you'll get a clear shot out." 

"Then you know what I'm doin'." Or at least he hoped that's what he was doing. He felt like he could no longer see the big picture. It was a good thing Marc was here, even though he didn't want him to risk his life for this. 

Marc was silent until they were out of the gate, and half way to the jeep. "So what's the deal? We go see these other demi-gods, and see what they're offering in return?" 

Logan shrugged. "Got a better idea?" He caught a strange scent on the wind, and casually glanced around, not wanting to alert Marcus in case it was nothing. But where had that new sickly sweet smell of decay come from? 

"No. But never bargain for the return of a dead person. Man, didn't you read Pet Semetary? Leave well enough alone." 

Logan quirked an eyebrow at him. " 'Scuse me if I don't see Stephen King as an arbiter of reality." 

It was then, as if on cue, that dark shapes appeared on the immediate horizon. They were the oil workers, some unarmed, others carrying pipes, heavy wrenches, and other tools that could be considered weapons if used the right way. One of them was inexplicably toting an ax. 

All of them fixed their empty eyed stares on them, and started closing in on them at an unhurried pace. They would probably intercept them the moment they got to the jeep, if they didn't charge them. Logan guessed their numbers to be in the low twenties, meaning that he and Marc would have to take at least ten apiece. 

"You were sayin'?" Marcus said wryly. 

"Think they're after our brains?" It was an attempt at a joke, but not much of one. 

"In that case, they're gonna starve," Marc replied. He really needed a recording of a rimshot to carry around with him. "Did the Jean demon just screw us royal?" 

He shook his head. "I smelled this on the Plain of Night. I think it's the other ones." 

"The ones that don't hurt Humans? Cute. So she was full of shit?" 

"Or the others are using a loophole. They don't hurt them directly, but use go betweens for the attacks." That's what the squid things were that attacked him, weren't they? Others working for them. The Jean thing never hurt him, because the Jean thing was them. And that Jean thing was trying to scare him away. 

"And zombies are just meat puppets.You gotta hate anything that works the loopholes." Marcus scowled at the advancing army of the undead. "So Mohammed, are we waiting for the mountain to come to us?" 

Logan gave him an appraising look, and rolled a single shoulder in a half hearted shrug. "Bein' defensive kinda sucks." 

Marcus nodded in agreement, scanning the unbroken scrimmage line of zombies. "Yeah. And let's face it - we were born to be offensive." 

"It's a curse. Call dibs on the West." 

"Gotcha." Marcus reached under his shirt for his guns, and shouted, "Come on evil dead, let's get it on!" 

Logan roared in pent up rage as he ran towards them, popping the claws on both hands. Marcus started running towards the easternmost side of the line, and the zombies, recognizing the battle was on, started running towards them. 

Even as he ran, Marc fired his guns, but rather than going for head shots (which might be iffy on the undead) or body shots, he aimed for the legs. This was why fighting Marcus was always strategically sound - undead or not, it was hard to fight when you couldn't stand up. 

More zombies surged over the rise to fill in gaps as the ones who had their kneecaps blown out in bloody bursts toppled like dominoes, and Logan threw himself headlong into the human wall, punching through whatever part of the body presented itself. 

He wondered if they fought their way through this, would they have to fight the entire remaining population of Santo Marco? 

This was looking more and more like the worst decision they had ever made. And Logan knew - especially in his case - that was really saying something. 

12 

    As Logan decapitated his first zombie, he wondered if the body would get up and fight without it. 

He didn't have a long time to think about it, as they were trying to bury him with the sheer weight of their numbers. He did notice, as he stabbed his claws through a zombie Meeks torso and tore him completely in half, that they hardly bled at all. There were splashes when he punched through a major artery, or Marc hit them with a bullet, but it wasn't like it was when you hit a real living person. Even when he slashed off another zombie's head, there was no blood fountaining from the neck. But then blood didn't pump when you were dead, did it? 

He lashed out and sliced a pipe in half as he kicked another zombie away, the crunch of his sternum collapsing barely audible over the angry muttering of the undead, who were growing more vicious as their numbers dwindled rapidly. He felt bony fingers like claws break his skin and rip away handfuls of his flesh from his shoulder and his back (he had no time to see if they ate it), and even as he separated one zombie from his arm permanently, he saw a blur out of the corner of his eye that he couldn't quite avoid. 

It was a huge wrench, and it hit him flush in the side of the head, hard enough to make the wrench head snap off and fly away on impact. Logan dropped to one knee, mind reeling and vision growing briefly cloudy, but the adrenaline in his system - along with the throbbing pain from his ripped open scalp, and the cloying smell of blood and decaying flesh in his nose - kept him from losing consciousness. 

He slashed out the legs from two sets of zombies who tried to take him down completely, but he was still slower than before, and maybe that's why he didn't see the guy with the ax. 

But he did feel it, as the head was buried deep between his shoulder blades. 

The blade snapped on his adamantium spinal column, and the ax handle went flying over his shoulder, but the pain was indescribable. The cold blade in his skin didn't feel too great either. 

As much as it hurt, he jumped up to his feet and spun, claws extended, and he sliced the zombie's arm off at the shoulder, but the heavy weight of the ax head in his back nearly sent him stumbling. 

Another zombie hit it, and the metal caused a spark he could feel inside his body, a sensation he had never wanted to feel again. 

He got jostled enough that the blade fell out, hitting the ground with a heavy thud, and he could still feel warm blood streaming down his back as his healing factor struggled to fix such a deep wound. It gave him a head rush as he slashed one zombie in the face and elbowed another one hard enough to fracture his skull. 

Marcus was out of bullets, but from the way the zombies around him were staggering and jerking like they were in the throes of seizures, his toxin did work on the human parts of them. 

Logan cut through another zombie's neck, anger at the pain of healing spurring him onward, and had just stabbed another one straight through the eyes when he stumbled forward, nearly tripping over severed limbs and fallen bodies, and raised his free, bloody claw to strike. 

And found himself face to face with Jean, her pale lips curved up in a disarmingly sweet smile, and he froze. 

It was what she expected, judging from the way her expression remained even. "I'm sorry," she said, actually sounding like she meant it. 

"Logan!" Marcus shouted. But he was so hypnotized by her reddish brown eyes that he didn't even turn. She looked more like the real Jean, didn't she? It was something intangible ... 

"We can't let you remove the final seal," Jean told him, pity shining in her eyes like tears. "I hope you'll understand." 

Logan was about to ask what, but before he could, he sensed the presence behind him. There was no time - Jean had sabotaged his senses, and even his reflexes couldn't compensate. 

He didn't realize his throat had been cut until the blade pulled away sharply from the side of his neck. 


	7. Part 7

Logan threw his elbow back and caught the zombie in the face, breaking its nose with a crunch, but it was hardly satisfying. Even in this heat, he could feel all the warmth leaving his body, spilling down his chest, and even has he labored to breathe, he lunged for her. 

It was no use - she dodged out of the way, and Logan collapsed to his knees in a small muddy spot on the ground, made with his own blood. He could feel his neck burning, trying to heal, but his head was swimming, and he felt strangely weak. 

Marcus tackled her, or tried, but even as it looked like he had her, he hit the ground empty handed. Logan retracted his claws and put a hand to his throat, only to feel blood spill over his fingers. His healing factor wasn't kicking in fast enough, maybe because of his other injuries. 

Marc jumped to his feet and looked around frantically for her, but she was gone. A zombie moved for Logan, but Marc grabbed him from behind and pulled his tanto, and viciously slit its throat. Logan wondered if that was a quid pro quo move as Marcus tossed the zombie with the nearly severed head aside, and crouched in front of him. "Holy shit," he gasped, reaching out his free hand towards his throat. But he stopped himself, suddenly aware he wasn't wearing his gloves, and while they both knew Logan would probably survive (then become immune) to his toxin, now was not the time to test it. He put his knife back in its sheath instead, and tried not to look panicked. "Are you healin'?" 

Logan nodded very carefully. "It's takin' a while. Buy me some time." 

"You got it," he replied, and stood up, pulling his third gun. Marcus started blasting down the few remaining zombies, pausing only once to reload. He could feel his shadow falling over him, and realized that, instead of moving out, Marc was guarding him. 

Logan looked down at the puddles, watching his blood dribble down into them, crimson soaking into rusty orange dirt. And he would swear the ground absorbed it, drinking up his blood as eagerly as a desert soaked up rain. He remembered what the other Jean said about being "bound" to this land, and he wondered if a piece of dirt could itself be haunted, a quasi-living, quasi-possessed thing. 

He felt so light headed he had to close his eyes to keep from seeing the ground move beneath him, and the darkness felt like relief. He could just keep his eyes shut for a moment, it would be okay. 

The darkness felt warm and soft, enfolding around him like a velvet blanket, and he wondered if the Earth itself could be a sort of vampire. 

13 

    When Logan woke up on the cold, damp stone floor, the scent of stale damp immediately reminded him of a dungeon. 

It was too dark to see initially, so he had to wait for his eyes to adjust as he raised himself to his hands and knees. But he didn't need to wait; the darkness only became slightly grey, and that was all. There were no sources of light, and, from what he could make out in the dimness, no way to get in or out either. He could see   
that he was in a room made of stone, tall and narrow, like he was trapped in a tower. 

He knew from the way he could feel the chill, humid air on his skin that he was naked, and for some reason the hair on his head felt longer. He had no idea why any of this was this way, but he knew he wasn't going to stick around and find out. 

As he struggled to stand up - his legs felt oddly weak and rubbery - he attempted to pop his claws, only to find he couldn't. He just twitched muscles in his arms, and couldn't understand why it wasn't working. Somebody had done something to him ... what had they done? 

He'd only gone a few steps when his knees gave way and he collapsed to the hard stone, landing on his hands and knees. What was the point anyways? If he couldn't pop his claws, he couldn't cut his way out of here, and he still didn't see a door or a window he could force. How did they put him in here? Was he dropped through a trapdoor in the ceiling? 

He sat back on his haunches and looked for the smallest deviation in the light. He then realized he smelled water even more strongly now, and saw, maybe three meters in front of him, a deeper patch of dark on the floor. It was circular, maybe four feet in diameter, and as he crept closer to it, he could see it had the slightest shimmer. A mirror? No, what fucking sense would a mirror in the floor make? 

As he came up to it, he saw it was a puddle of water. But it looked fathomless for a mere puddle, a pool of liquid darkness that seemed impossibly deep. He tried to see his reflection, but all he could see was a faint glimmer of orange. It grew brighter, and he realized it was the shape of something in the water - something like fire. But how could fire exist in water? 

It got bigger and brighter, almost forming a shape, and just as soon as he realized it was coming up at a rapid rate, part of it burst through the water. It was like an arm of flame, and before he could react it grabbed him by the throat ... 

He jolted awake and found himself face down on dirt stinking of his own blood. The air was warm and dry, redolent of decaying flesh, cordite, and old blood. He remembered now. 

"Logan, you back?" Marcus asked. 

"Yeah." He shoved himself up to his knees, and felt mud on his face, which he wiped off. The burning of his throat had subsided, and he reached up to feel how bad the gash was now. 

What gash? It was closed completely now, the blood on his skin starting to get as tacky as paste. 

Logan looked around, and found the ground was littered with corpses. Some were still moving around, but they couldn't get up, and that was a major hindrance as far as fighting went. "No more reinforcements?" 

"Not yet." 

"Let's get out of here before they show up." Logan got to his feet, riding out a major head rush - the wound was healed, but his blood volume hadn't returned to its usual level. Still, he managed to stagger back to the jeep without Marc's help. 

Marcus jumped in the driver's seat, but looked at Logan speculatively. "What?" He snapped irritably. 

From the way he looked at him, he assumed he gazed at his neck first. "It's freaky, that's all. Slit throats usually kill everything with a functioning circulatory system." 

"I ain't normal." 

"I know. Lucky you." 

"Funny how I don't feel that way." He still rubbed his neck, and considered his "dream". That was the thing that   
interrupted his dream back in Baltimore, wasn't it? 

"So how many more things do you think demon Jean - other demon Jean - will throw in our path?" He started the jeep and drove out of the valley of the damned as fast as the vehicle would allow - and over zombies, some living, some already in pieces. If he didn't know better, he'd think Marc was aiming for the living ones. 

"Everything it can get its hands on. Got enough ammo?" 

"I left the pack back at the house. All I got is three clips left on me." 

"Three? Where the fuck did you keep 'em?" Marc was only wearing his sleeveless khaki "safari" shirt and matching walking shorts, and his hiking boots fit too well to even hold his smallest gun, although Logan was roughly sure he had kept at least one of them there. 

Marcus gave him a grin that he knew meant a smart ass remark was forthcoming. "Really wanna know?" 

"Forget it." He moved his head from side to side, listening to his neck creak, and wondered what that fire thing was supposed to mean. 

The landscape was nothing more than an orangish-brown blur as Marcus took them towards the Plain of Night as fast as the jeep would take them. It was almost the color of the fire thing that kept invading his dreams. What the fuck was it? And why did it seem ... familiar somehow? 

"What are you thinkin' about?" Marcus asked, shouting to be heard over the wind. 

He shook his head, and wasn't going to tell him, but he did anyways. "Somethin' keeps invadin' my dreams." 

"Something?" 

"It's like ... an energy thing, fiery, but not on fire. If that makes sense." 

"One of these demi-demons?" 

"No, it started happening before we came here." 

"Could it be Bob?" 

"No. He just walks into my dreams and takes them over as easy as a professional party crasher, and he never shows up in his true form. And it's the wrong color anyways." 

"His true form?" 

Logan shrugged. "He's like this blue energy thing." 

Even though Marc's eyes were still hidden behind his black goggles, he knew just from the way he arched his eyebrow at him that he was staring at him in a mixture of shock and disbelief. "You're shitting me. He's a blue energy thing?" 

"I told ya a body was optional with him," he pointed out testily. Bob wasn't the point of this thing - the only thing he knew for sure was Bob wasn't involved with this. "And the fireball thing in my dreams is sort of orange red." 

"Fireball?" 

"I'm not sure what shape it is, really. It's hard to see, and even harder to remember." Even now he was having difficulty remembering it. It had grabbed him by the throat, hadn't it? Like it had a hand ... and he would swear he felt the residual burn when he came to on the ground. But that was his own healing factor finishing up closing the wound. Wasn't it? 

Was it trying to hurt him or help him? 

"What does it do exactly?" 

"Nothing ... I mean, I'm not sure. I think it's tryin' to communicate with me ... or at least tell me somethin'." 

"What? 'Put me out'?" 

He scowled at him, even though Marc had turned his attention back to driving. Since he wasn't on a road, it was a bit more complicated. "No. But I don't know what it is tryin' to say. It's ... weird." 

"Since when is weird new to you?" 

Okay, he had him there. "It's the principal of the thing. I don't like somethin'  barging around my mind and not explaining itself." 

Marcus was quiet for a moment. "You're a complicated dude." 

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" 

"If something was in my head, I'd want it out. I wouldn't give a flyin' fuck about its agenda." 

"Yeah well ... I've been around Bob too long." 

He knew they had reached the Plain of Night by the feeling alone - it was like his skin was trying to crawl off his body and hide under the seat. Marc must have felt it too, as he brought the jeep to a skidding halt in the center of the field, scraping up divots of dying yellow grass. 

"Wow. Could this place give off more bad vibes?" Marc asked, killing the engine. He pulled out his HK, which was presumably still loaded, and held it with the barrel pointed up at the pale sky as he got out of the jeep. 

"I doubt it." He jumped out of the jeep, braced for anything - or so he liked to think. Truth be told, he had no idea if he was ready for anything. 

"It's difficult when desire and resentment get mixed together, isn't it?" Jean said, leaning against one of the palm trees. It was the more realistic one, the one who'd had his throat cut. 

From the way Marc's spine stiffened, he saw her too, but he didn't aim his gun, knowing it was useless. 

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He snapped, although part of him didn't want to know. 

She gave him that same sad smile she gave him before the zombie slit his throat. "You know, Logan. You also know the others are lying to you - they won't bring her back." 

"And you will?" Marc replied dubiously. 

"No, of course not," she replied, in a mildly scolding voice. "We don't make deals like that." 

"You just use squidwards to do your dirty work, and slit throats," Logan shot back. 

She fixed him with those hypnotic cinnamon eyes, and he did his best to resist their pull. "One does what one has to to survive. I know you understand that." 

He knew that was a dig of some sort, but he wasn't about to acknowledge it. "Will you let us go? Will you let us just walk outta here?" 

"It's not quite that simple." 

"No, of course not." Logan sighed, wishing he was surprised. 

"We are not strong enough to hold them off, outside our limited circle of influence," she explained. "Our abilities do not extend beyond the perimeter." 

"But theirs does?" Marc said. It really wasn't a question; it just sounded like it. 

"There are more of them than us," she said, as if that explained everything. Perhaps it did. 

"So what happens if we remove the seal? Do they destroy you?" He asked. She did say they did what they had to do to survive. 

She glanced down at the ground diffidently, and walked away from the tree, hands clasped behind her back. She had her uniform jacket zipped up, and her cleavage seemed more realistic. "It's possible." 

"You don't know?" 

"We don't wish to find out." Well, he had to give her that. She glanced at them, and her look, although not unkind, was much sterner than before. "You understand we cannot let you go farther." 

"Gonna cut our throats?" Marc snapped. 

She had the decency to feign a wince. "We don't wish to harm you - " 

"But it ain't gonna stop ya," Logan interrupted, disgusted. "Be a creep or don't. Don't give us this half-hearted bullshit. At least we know the other Jean wants to suck our energy out or whatever the fuck. Be honest if nothing else." 

"I am being honest," she insisted, with a sort of wounded dignity. "Our people started out as protectors, not killers." 

Marcus crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the hood of the jeep. He was still holding his gun, probably in preparation for zombies. "So what happened?" 

She shrugged, and made a helpless gesture with her hands. "Some of our kind got tempted with a darker power." 

"Ah shit, Luke - didn't Yoda warn us about this?" Marc asked him sarcastically. 

Logan gave him a skeptical look. "Everybody knows I'm Han Solo." 

"More like Chewbacca with that hair," he fired back, giving him a smart ass grin. Logan flipped him the bird. 

Jean looked between them uncomprehendingly. "I don't understand." 

"Human shit," Logan said dismissively. "So they got pulled over to the dark side, and started sucking energy out of Humans, animals, insects - anything they could reach?" 

She hesitated. "That's a simplistic version. But yes, basically." 

"And that's too bad for you sister, but we just wanna get outta here," Logan pointed out impatiently. "Not only are all the mutants here - besides us - dead, so is the whole fuckin' country. You guys wanna keep fighting your little war? Fine. But leave us the fuck out of it!" 

Once again this earned him a pitying, patronizing look. Even though it was on Jean's face, he wanted to rip it off with his claws."It's too late. You're the only way they can remove the seal." 

"And you'll kill us to stop it." Marcus said flatly. 

She turned the pity look on him. "I'm - " 

"If you apologize one more time, I'm gonna shove that fucking seal up your ass," Logan snapped. "We don't wanna remove that seal, we don't trust those fucks, but since you cut my fuckin' throat we don't trust you either. And don't fucking say you're sorry!" 

She seemed a little bewildered. "You will work for them - if not voluntarily, then involuntarily. It's too much of a risk." 

He really did want to hurt this Jean. The fact that she cut his throat probably was the main thorn in his paw. "Why not work with us? You wanna keep them trapped here? Fine, so do we. We will help you. Or we would have if you hadn't tried to slice my head off." 

"Is there some way we can use the  seal against them?" Marcus asked. " Like a weapon?" 

She shook her head. "I don't see how." 

"What about the other seals?" Logan suggested. "Can we put them back?" 

"The oil drilling equipment destroyed them." 

"Can we get new ones?" He continued. "Make them somehow. Bob knew this conjuring shit. Don't you?" 

She didn't look at him but through him, pondering that question carefully. "We are not ..." She paused. "We can't do that." 

"What about us?" Logan asked, running a hand through his hair. He wasn't nervous, he just wanted to do something. Being helpless was the worst feeling in the world, and he'd already experienced it enough in his life. "Could we ... I don't know, replace 'em somehow?" 

That made the Jean thing frown, and Marcus scoffed. "What? How the fuck we do that, Logan? Ain't either of us Gandolf." 

Logan reached into his pocket, and pulled out the cell phone, holding it up for Jean's edification. "Just get me an outside line for a few minutes, and I can get ahold of someone who knows how to put your seals back in place." 

She gave him a dubious look, biting her lower lip in a strangely human gesture that was deeply unnerving. 

"Think Wes has the goods to handle this?" Marcus asked, sounding a little doubtful himself. 

Logan shook his head. He'd gotten the idea from his "dream", or whatever the fuck it was, or at least he thought he had. It was the idea of the water, the idea that somehow he could not see his own reflection in it; the water had not been a mirror. And that was the key - mirror. "No. But he can contact someone who can." 

"You gonna let me in?" Marc wondered. 

"I can't call Bob," he admitted. "But no one said I couldn't call in his family." 

Although he had a feeling he'd be just as sorry he did. 

14 

    When he got through to Wes, he sounded just like his mother. 

Well, in a manner of speaking. He cursed him out for scaring him shitless ( not his term, but it was obvious ), and admitted he'd been trying to find a spellcaster who could help at a distance. "That's kinda why I called," Logan admitted, after he caught him up on things as best he could. "I know one, but you're gonna have to call her for me, 'cause I don't know her number." 

Wes paused, for so long it was almost comical. "What am I, a phone book?" 

Logan sighed, and sunk back into the hot leather seat. He decided to sit back down in the jeep for this call, as he was still tired from blood loss. In fact, he felt like he could sleep for days, but he knew now was not the time or place - not if he didn't want that fire bird thing showing up again. Marcus was sitting on the jeep's hood, still holding on to his gun, and keeping a wary eye out on seemingly everything, but focusing most intensely on the Jean thing, still loitering at the tree line, watching them with an almost clinical curiosity, head cocked to one side as if she was eavesdropping on the conversation. "Look, she's a grand-daughter ... or maybe great-grand daughter, I don't know ... of Bob's. Bob seemed to think she was a powerful witch, and after having seen her in action, I think he had a point." She was there on Dis, wasn't she? Fighting old what's his name, the guy with the sharp head, and even though he was a returned from the dead black magician, Bob seemed to think she was more than powerful enough to bring down his magic - and she had been, hadn't she? Storm's lightning bolts didn't break through the cave walls first; Amaranth had to bring down the magical "forcefield" protecting the place first. And then she put him and Bob back in their right bodies after they'd gotten switched somehow. Then later, Amaranth had brought him half way across the world, only to send him into another dimension. She was definitely Bob's "girl" all right - she wasn't just powered, she was superpowered. "Her name is Amaranth ... well, I don't know her last name. Could be Oberon, but probably isn't. She lives somewhere in Sydney, I think." 

"Amaranth?" Wesley repeated. "Like the myth?" 

He scowled up at the pale blue sky. "What myth?" 

"An amaranth was a supposedly immortal flower. Its blooms would never die." Wes thought a moment, and then said, "You're sure she's powerful? Even a witch of some standing would have difficulty handling a mystical sinkhole, nonetheless the beings your describing. Especially if they are demi-gods of some sort." 

"Yeah, well, Ammy's got quite a bit of Bob in her, and enough attitude for about four other people. I think she can take it." She could probably chew tin cans and spit out nails. The phrase "tough broad" was invented specifically for women like her, but it was probably best not said to their face for that very same reason. 

"She isn't in the Melbourne Spellcasters Union, is she?" 

Logan knew he couldn't see his reaction, but that didn't keep him from being nonplussed. "They have a union now?" 

"Yes," Wesley replied, as if it was common knowledge. "I know the head wizard." 

Under any other circumstances, that would have been funny. "I have no fuckin' idea if she's joined up. Maybe you should ask him." 

"I will," he agreed. Wes did know he was being sarcastic, didn't he? "Does she have the blood?" 

"Huh?" Not only did that not make sense, but it was also familiar somehow. Logan would have sworn he'd heard someone - Kumiho ? - say something about Bob and his blood. Wes hadn't said his blood, though, he'd said "the blood", like it was something special ... beyond being cobalt blue. And that's when it finally hit him - it wasn't really his blood he was talking about, but his lineage - his power. Did Amaranth have "the blood" - the blood of a god in her veins. Which would make her ... oh holy fucking shit, it would make her a demi-god, wouldn't it? Just like these fucking Santo Marco clowns. Only she didn't have their restrictions, did she? "Now that you mention it, I think she does." 

"I would hope so. I'd hate to send someone into a mystical sinkhole without the power to defend themselves." 

"Trust me, she kicks some serious ass - she's Australian. Just find her, and tell her there are some jag offs around here dissing her granddad and her family in general." 

"Do you think that will work?" Wesley sounded almost more amused than curious. 

"You know Bob and his family. The one connecting thread is they're all fucking nuts." Logan heard a burst of static across the line, and knew the time the second Jean thing had bought him had just been used up. "Good luck." 

He then shut the phone, and hesitated to put it back in his pocket. The shirt he wore was drenched in his blood, and if that and the metallic smell of it wasn't bad enough, the heat of the day was baking it on him, making it stick to his skin, making him itch. He'd been hoping there was a spare shirt in here somewhere, but no such luck. "Head's up," he shouted to Marc, and tossed him the phone back. Marc caught it neatly in one hand, and tucked it into his shirt pocket. 

"Think she'll show?" 

"She'll show," Logan assured him, getting out of the jeep. The combination of the overbearing sun beating down on them and blood loss made him feel sluggish. There was a canteen of ( now lukewarm ) water in the glove box, and he gulped half of it down, grimacing at its slightly plastic aftertaste. It had been sitting in the canteen, and in the heat of the compartment, for too damn long. 

Finally at his wit's end, he peeled off the bloody shirt and threw it on the ground. "I don't suppose you could at least conjure me up a shirt, could ya?" He asked peevishly, pouring the rest of the canteen on his itchy chest and stomach, and tried to slough off the drying blood with his free hand. It helped a little, but not much. He really had bled out like a stuck pig. If any of the flies were still alive, they'd probably have been all over him. 

"I still can't believe you got up and walked away from that," Marcus commented, watching him out of the corner of his goggles. 

"It should have killed you," Jean noted, with an empty dispassion. "It should kill anyone." 

He glared at her, dropping the empty canteen on the ground. "Hey sweetheart, we're mutants. Some of us ain't that easy to kill." 

"Some more than others," Marcus noted wryly. 

Logan wished he had some more water left to pour on the back of his neck. It was probably about a hundred degrees, and the exceedingly dry heat seemed to have evaporated the water before it could hit the ground. 

"We didn't count on you having more friends in high places," Jean said. 

He looked at her curiously. "What does that mean?" 

She just gazed back him guilelessly, like she thought it was a rhetorical question. Was it? 

Before he could ask, Logan caught a familiar scent on the hot, anemic wind - even over the cloying smell of his own blood - and took a good, hard look at the landscape around them. Marcus must have noticed his increased scrutiny, because he asked, "We got company?" 

He nodded. "Apparently we didn't kill all the zombies." 

Jean look at a nothing point on the horizon, just over his shoulder. "They know." 

They didn't need to ask her who she meant, or what they knew, because that was obvious. 

As the zombies started to shamble over the horizon, Marcus slammed an ammo clip into a second gun, and said, "Locked and loaded. Want one?" 

Logan shook his head. "I'm a blade man." 

"Can you fight?" Marcus asked the Jean thing. 

She looked startled by the question. "We can't fight them." 

"But you can control the zombies, we know that," Logan pointed out. When he popped his claws, she jumped slightly, as if not expecting that. Well, she had seen them, hadn't she? She knew he had them. Did she think he was gonna try and use them on her? ( There was an idea... ) "Can't you make 'em back off?" 

She stared off at nothing for a moment, then shook her head. "No." 

Marc slid off the jeep's hood, holding a gun in each hand. "Can you at least slit their throats?" 

She grimaced and looked away, as if deeply embarrassed. Logan almost felt bad for her, although not quite. "Can you keep the other ones from fucking up our senses?" 

"We can try," she said, with little conviction. 

Logan braced himself as he turned to face the oncoming zombie army, and hoped he'd regenerated enough of his blood volume that he wouldn't be slow. 

It was then that he felt something in the air, like the spaces between the atoms were trembling, and the Jean thing backed up into the trees, a leery look on her face. The atmosphere felt charged, the moment before the lightning strike. 

Logan spun to face the threat as it seemed to pop right out of thin air. A young woman was suddenly just standing there, barefoot, wearing leopard print boxer shorts and an oversized black tank top with the words "What are you staring at?" emblazoned across the front in broken red letters. Her bright blue hair - matching her bright blue eyes and anoxic blue lips - was a mess, as if she just came in from a tornado. "All right, who's the gobshite talkin' smack about Bob?" She snapped, turning her annoyed gaze straight on him. If she even noticed his exposed claws, she didn't give a shit. 

Amaranth had arrived. 

15 

    Logan was glad to see her, but he knew if he said so, there was a good chance she'd actually smack him. She reminded him a bit of those warnings on firecrackers - "Light fuse and get away quickly". "We got us a zombie problem at the moment," he told her, using his claws to gesture over his shoulder at the advancing horde. 

"This is her?" Marcus said curiously. He'd had his guns trained on her, but quickly changed the aim. Good thing for him too. 

Amaranth turned her sharp blue gaze on him. "And who are you supposed to be? Wesley Snipes?" 

"Ooh," he said, feigning being wounded. "You got out of the wrong side of bed, didn't you?" 

"And who are the berks that got me outta bed?" She shot back, then looked Logan over once more, taking her time. "Do you ever wear a shirt?" 

Marcus burst out laughing, and Logan just glared straight back at her. He was going to ask her if she ever looked in a mirror after she got dressed - although obviously they had gotten her out of bed - but Marcus found his voice enough to say, "Well, he's got to show off his fabulous tits." 

Amaranth almost smirked, and Logan shifted his death stare to Marc, who simply chuckled. "Well, you do man. You got a chest you could eat dinner off of ... well, if you don't mind the hair gettin' between your teeth." 

"Shut up before I kill you," he warned, which just made Marc laugh harder. 

When he turned back to Ammy, she was staring at Jean, who seemed to be shrinking from her spotlight gaze. "And what are you supposed to be?" She asked the Jean thing, obviously seeing through her guise. 

"We are the protectors of this land," the Jean thing said, standing ramrod straight, assuming an air of dignity. She was pretending she had never been scared of Amaranth ... but she had been, hadn't she? And it wasn't just the shock of her popping up in the middle of the mystical sinkhole, which probably would have been off limits to most - something about her backed the Jean thing off. That boded well for the rest of this. 

Amaranth snorted derisively. "Are you now? You've made a dog's breakfast of it, haven't ya?" 

Jean looked puzzled, and Logan really couldn't help her, although he was pretty sure that was bad. 

"Look here, sister, I don' appreciate bein' pulled outta bed to close up somethin' that you've ballsed up. You're doin' my block, and I just met ya, so stay the fuck back unless you want me to job you. Right?" 

"I almost understood that," Marc commented. It wasn't just the Australian slang, which was probably bad enough on its own; Amaranth had a thick accent. Not an "acceptable" Aussie accent, like Mel Gibson or Nicole Kidman - Ammy had one so dense you could stand a butter knife up in it; it was almost Cockney. If she ever starred in a movie for the American market, it would need subtitles. 

Amaranth suddenly turned around, and pointed an accusing finger. "Now you, ratbag - " 

"Hey!" He knew what that meant at least. 

" - I don't want you thinkin' you can ring me every time you get stuck up the gum tree. Maybe Granddad puts up with it, but I won't." 

"If I remember correctly, didn't you once pull me out of New York and make me go look for Bob?" He snapped right back. Admittedly, he didn't want to tangle with Ammy: no matter that she was probably twenty at the oldest, shorter than him, and a slip of a girl at that, she exuded a natural power and authority that any general leading his troops into war would have killed for. She may have had the dress sense of a glue sniffer, and the attitude of a hardened ex-con, but she didn't make false promises. If she said she could do your ass, she could, in spades. 

Her neon blue eyes - so much like Bob's - narrowed suspiciously. "Are you sayin' I owe you?" 

Apparently that was fighting words with her. "No, but it'd even the slate, wouldn't it?" 

"Uh, guys, hate to break up the international incident, but we got zombie town on our zero and closing fast." Marcus interjected. Indeed, there was an even larger zombie scrimmage line than before, maybe fifty or so, and some of them carried the automatic weapons of the security staff. They weren't fucking around this time. 

Amaranth made that derisive noise again, and said, "I'll give 'em the flick." She then said something in a language that Logan didn't understand ( but was pretty sure it was a language he'd heard Bob use before ), and held out her hand towards the zombie front. Logan expected something to shoot from her hand, but nothing did. 

The zombies froze, and suddenly all crumbled to dust, their bodies shattering into piles of dirt. The weapons they were carrying all hit the ground with a dull thud. 

"Whoa!" Marc exclaimed, equally surprised and impressed. "What the fuck did you do to 'em, girl?" 

She gave him a hard stare. Logan guessed she didn't like being called "girl", even if it was meant affectionately. "I returned them to earth. If they hadn't been reanimated by some drongo, they'd have been turnin' to dirt anyways." 

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," Marc mused, swallowing a chuckle. 

Logan noticed Amaranth had a tattoo when the neck of her tank top shifted slightly. It was a small chevron shaped blue flame, close to where her heart would be - assuming she had a heart in the usual Human place. What was with all the fire symbolism? What was it trying to tell him? 


	8. Part 8

"Zombies," Amaranth snickered derisively. "Kid stuff. Tell 'em to change their nappies and get back to me when they're adults." 

"Clever move, witch," Jean said - but not the Jean with them. Looking sharply, they could see the other Jean, now standing just beyond the piles of dirt that once made up her zombie army. "But you're not nearly as strong as you think." 

Even as she lifted her hand, Amaranth raised hers, and whatever the Jean thing intended to do, it slammed into an invisible barrier Ammy had thrown up around them. "Too slow, cow," she taunted the Jean thing. Ammy then glanced at the Jean thing behind them, which had retreated to the trees again. "What the fuck are they, twin sisters?" 

"They chose a guise designed to fuck with Logan," Marcus volunteered. 

He scowled at him, but way too late. "Ex-girlfriend?" She asked. 

Logan shook his head. "Friend. Dead." 

"He has lots of those," the evil ( well, eviler ) Jean said. "Don't you, Logan?" 

"So fucking what?" Amaranth shot back. "Death's a part of life, and you're overdue, ain't ya, slag?" With that, she said something in that strange language, and something did shoot out of her hands this time. 

And  the evil Jean disappeared. 

"What d'ya do?" Marc asked her. 

"I sent her out of here. She was pissin' me off." She said, like she'd just shown her to the door instead of teleporting her gods knew where. 

But then Marcus started looking around the ground, and aimed his guns down. "Multiple hots, closing fast." 

"What the fuck does that mean?" Ammy snapped crossly, but just barely. The ground started to tremble violently, and suddenly broke open, right under their feet. Before anyone could react, they were all swallowed up by the earth. 

16 

    The instant he fell, Logan did two things simultaneously. 

The first was pop the claws of his right hand, and jam them into the wall of earth suddenly growing up beside him. The second thing he did was reach out and snag Amaranth as she fell, grabbing her by the arm. 

"Motherfucker!" She shouted angrily, and he didn't know if it was aimed at him or the Jean things, or both. 

He heard gunshots off to his right, and looked to see Marcus had grabbed onto the lip of the chasm and was hanging on with one hand, shooting down with the other. He didn't see the other Jean thing, but he wasn't concerned. 

The chasm they were hanging over looked fathomless, and there was subtle but rapid movement in the dark, exactly what Marc was shooting at. More of those squid things? He couldn't quite see them yet, but it was a good bet. 

Ammy cursed again, then said something in Latin. Logan had no idea he knew Latin, but it sounded like she had said, "Burn like the sun." 

She must have, as fire suddenly erupted across the bottom like a tornado of flames, and there was screeching, like a combination of bird cries and dentist drills. "Fuck this shit," she snapped, and grabbed Logan's leg before saying something in that indecipherable language she had used before. 

Logan stumbled in shock as they were back on solid ground again, a couple feet away from the rift. He retracted his claws and headed for Marc, leaving Amaranth to do her thing. She didn't his protection - they probably needed hers. 

"Grab the arms," Marc warned him. "Ain't got gloves." 

"I know - I'm not a moron," he groused, grabbing Marc by his arms and pulling him up. 

"These wankers are startin' to piss me off," Amaranth snapped. "Where the fuck's Bluey?" 

"Who?" Logan asked, looking around for yet another surprise opponent. 

"Bluey," she repeated, giving him a dirty look. "Ya know, the redhead." 

Marc did the slightest of double takes. "You call a redhead Bluey?" 

"It's probably an Australian thing," Logan said dismissively, pretty sure it was. Or Amaranth was color blind. 

She said something in the strange language again, and made a sweeping gesture with her hands, and Logan could feel something pass by him, like a sudden gust of hot wind. 

And in that moment, Logan saw a different world. 

The clutches of palms and vines surrounding them, green and lush, were suddenly dead things; grey and skeletal, the trunks of the trees were deathly spikes that surrounded them like a cluster of giant daggers; the vines twined around their bases were so brown and sere they were virtually black, and ready to crumble away into dust at the slightest breeze. 

The dirt itself was dead; it wasn't brown, it was grey, like ash, like stone. The grey reached towards the horizon and infected the sky, making it a washed out hue, the color of bleached bones. Only the dinosaur shapes of the oil derricks - towering in the near distance, the metal gleaming like knife blades - still moving in their slow, rhythmic pounding, were any sign of life, and they were dumb machines. 

"Holy fucking Christ," Marc gasped. "Is this what Santo Marco really looks like?" 

Even though he didn't know, Logan found himself nodding anyways. "Yeah, I think so." It was dead - it was completely dead. The entire country, and everything in it. The energy had been drained out of everything. In its desire to feed itself, the reawakened gods had sucked the life out of everything - from the people to the insects to the bacteria in the dirt. Holy shit. 

"This is what happened to Ethan Casey," Logan said, thinking aloud, as the blasted landscape revealed itself to them. Ammy had thrown a spell that had pulled the veil off all their eyes. "He was probably the first one to investigate what the drill hit - he was the supervisor, wasn't he? And when he went to see ... they took it all." 

"Took it all?" Marc repeated curiously. It was probably just his choice of phrase. "His energy, you mean?" 

"Yeah. I wondered how that looked. I mean, if he just keeled over, they'd assume he had a heart attack - what's the big deal there?" 

"He didn't just keel over," Jean said, behind them. Separated from them by the chasm, and still cowering among the stalks of dead trees, they knew she was the "good" one. "He was completely desiccated. He went from Human to mummy in a few seconds. They were too eager for sustenance." 

Marc grimaced. "I bet that made the rest of the crew piss themselves." 

"While they were alive, yes," she agreed. 

Amaranth suddenly turned and glared at Jean. Her eyes weren't exactly glowing with energy like he'd seen Bob's do, but it was a close thing. "You cowardly slag," she accused, stomping towards the edge of the rift, bare feet still managing to kick up clouds of dead grey dust. "You let it happen. You were afraid of what they might do to you, so you hid behind your bloody seal, and let them drain everything they could out of everything else. What would you have done if no one ever showed up?" 

"War forever, over a piece of dead ground," Logan suggested bitterly. He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. It made a perverse sense, didn't it? Humans did it all the time - why not demi-gods too? 

"It was bullshit, wasn't it?" Marcus asked her. "Bein' "bound' to the earth around here. If we remove the seal, will she not only get you, but the surrounding area too?" 

"We belong to much of the land, " the Jean thing responded blandly. Her eyes were riveted on Ammy in what could be called abject fear. 

"How much?" Marcus asked, a suspicious tone creeping into his voice. "From here to ... the Pacific?" 

The Jean thing said, "All the land is ours, ocean to ocean." 

"Fuck," Logan muttered. They were bound to the land - it just had no respect for currently imposed political boundaries. And why would they? That was more Human shit. And with the seal removed, they could finally reclaim all their land - and everything on it. That was a scorched earth policy the Army would have envied. 

"How did the oil company not know this?" Marcus asked, looking around at the blasted, death scarred landscape. "They knew Casey was drained like a pint of beer at the Saint Patrick's Day parade. Not everyone was immediately killed - someone lived long enough to get the message to HQ. Why didn't they report this to someone? Why not pull out?" 

"Oil, baby," Jean said, but from the opposite direction. The bitch was back. "Oil is a precious commodity - people are expendable." 

Ammy turned her gaze to the evil Jean. "Want some more whoop ass, honey?" 

"They kept coming back for the oil?" Marcus asked, just seeking clarification. He was radiating disdain like heat. 

Jean ignored Ammy, and focused on Marcus. She was smiling, almost gloating. "We cut a deal. We have no use for oil. It's dead animal residue, and we need life. So they gave us life for the residue. Fair trade. I think you'd call it a oil for food policy." 

Marc's posture said it all. His spine stiffened, arms hung loose at his side, even though his grip on the handle of his gun was so tight his knuckles were starting to turn white, and there was some danger the gun would shatter in his hands. "They sent you victims in exchange for oil shipments?" 

"Didn't you intercept those e-mails, detective?" Evil Jean taunted him. "It was more than a fair trade. They're getting the best part of the deal, and they know it." 

"The new virgin sacrifice," Logan groused. "The employee sacrifice." 

"We like mutants most of all," Evil Jean said, with a leering grin. "But they're running out of ways to supply us." 

"Are you through yet?" Ammy asked savagely. Apparently it was impossible to intimidate her; the best you could do was piss her off even more. 

Evil Jean finally turned her impossibly deep and empty black eyes on Amaranth. "Ah, witch. So you have the taste of Bob on you, and you think you can take us? One of us, sure - but not all." 

It was then that Logan had to blink rapidly, in hopes of clearing his vision. No, he seemed to be seeing it right - there were seven identical Jeans, in skin tight leather and amply exposed cleavage, behind the original evil one.  
They had identical haughty stances, arms crossed over their chest, a single hip thrust out to the side. 

"There's three of us," Amaranth countered, unfazed. "If you haven't noticed, these two guys are fucking maniacs." 

"Was that a compliment?" Marc whispered to him. 

Logan could only shrug. It was possible. 

"But you aren't strong enough to give them your protection at equal measure, Bob-bette," Evil Jean number one said, continuing to leer at her. "I'd say you're outmatched, sweetie. And blue hair is so 1979." 

"It's my natural color, idjit," she replied. "And more like '99." 

Logan looked over his shoulder to see if other Jean was willing to chip in, but she was gone. Ammy was right - she was a coward. 

It was then it felt like he had a massive head rush, but in reverse - like his throat had been cut again. Logan collapsed to his knees, unable to stop himself, and found that Marc and Ammy had done the very same thing. He could feel the heat draining from his body, and straight into the ground. 

The ground. Ah shit. 

The eight Jeans gave them all smug grins, as Logan realized the ground was indeed a vampire, as long as they were in control; as long as it was an extension of their body. "You'll be a great meal for all of us. Who gives a fuck about the seal? The oil company will be back soon enough for more crude, and we can use one of them to remove it." 

Amaranth put her hand on the ground and said an incantation, and Logan could feel energy thrumming  beneath them. Evil Jean chuckled. "Nice try, hon. But not enough." 

And the more tired and cold Logan felt, the more he feared that was true. 

17 

    Amaranth was still struggling, but it was obvious she was reaching her limit. "C'mon, you stupid bint!" She shouted over her shoulder, presumably at the now missing "good" Jean. "We can kick their arses together if you just bloody show up!" 

But of course she didn't. "I don't think she's gonna," Logan offered, fighting to keep his eyelids open. "She's a chickenshit." 

"I've noticed!" She snapped, slapping her second hand to the ground. She was definitely pouring it on - whatever it was - but it wasn't enough. Of course they hadn't shriveled up like prunes yet and were still conscious, so she was staving them off, but she was losing the war in increments. 

Logan attempted to gather his forces and stand - or if not stand just pop his claws, lunge at the first Jean, and hope to hell she was at least partially corporeal - but he couldn't do it. She knew what he was trying to do, and wouldn't let him. 

Suddenly, he heard Ammy's voice in his head; faint, but mostly audible.*I'm gonna give you a big power boost in a minute* she sent *Make it count* 

How, he thought, but he got the sense that she was gone or just couldn't hear him. It wasn't proper telepathy but some kind of mystical form that was limited in range and scope. 

Logan closed his eyes, pretending to lose the battle but just gearing up for it. Maybe the corporeality of the main Jean didn't matter as long as he had some of Amaranth's power to give him a shove over the top. 

It was then that he got the strangest feeling. 

Familiar in a way he could not name, it was not Ammy's doing - he knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt. He'd felt this before ... 

"What the hell was that?" Evil Jean said, an edge of panic in her voice. 

Logan opened his eyes, and found that Ammy was looking around too. Only Marcus hadn't picked it up - whatever it was. 

"The pipeline is gushing, while here we lie in tombs. While on the corner, the jury's sleepless. We've found your weakness, and it's right outside your door," someone sang, and then, standing beside them, was Bob. 

He looked the same as always - too handsome for mere words, with artfully tousled golden brown hair, perhaps a little longer and shaggier than the last time he saw him - dressed in a skintight red t-shirt and black leather pants, with leather biker boots with lots of silver buckles on them. Tres kinky. The only real change was his eyes - he'd gone into full battle mode already, so there were no pupils, no whites; they were a pure, glowing cobalt blue, bleeding thin capillaries of energy out beyond his eyelids. 

"I'm back," he told them, giving them a Cheshire Cat smile. "And you're fine." 

Just like that, the energy stolen from all of them seemed to rebound, and it was another head rush as it filled them all in a sudden gush. Maybe he'd given them back more than what was stolen from them. 

Bob then made a gun of his thumb and forefinger, and pointed at the auxiliary Jeans behind the main one. "And you're mortal." 

The seven of them all seemed to stagger, grabbing their heads as if he just shouted in their ears, and the main Jean looked so ashen and scared Logan was waiting for her to barf while passing out. But she just started backing up, wide eyed, reeking of fear. 

"Where do you have to go?" Bob asked casually, voicing just what Logan thought. 

"W-we didn't kill your blood," Evil Jean stammered, clearly trying to fight back her panic. "We didn't kill your avatar - " 

"Not for lack of trying," he pointed out. For every step forward, Evil Jean took two steps back, but she still didn't seem to be getting any farther away from Bob. "And what's with the Jean guise? You need to be comfortable with your own look, Xhal - Cosmo is full of shit, ya know." He then snapped his fingers, and all the Jeans suddenly became ... 

... oh fucking Christ, what were they? 

Their skin was the mottled, fermented grey of putrescent flesh. Although humanoid in shape, their limbs and body looked swollen, like heated sausages about to split through their skin. In place of hair they had small, multicolored feathers encircling their bulbous grey head, and their facial features were soft to the point of being non-existent. Their eyes were like dark holes in their skull, swirling with a maroon energy whose source he could not place, and all wore around their waist something that looked like the skin of a massive green snake, so it was impossible to say if they had any sex or not. 

"No wonder they decided to look like Red," Marcus commented. 

Yeah, they wouldn't win anyone's beauty pageant, would they? 

"Things are not as they were, Bob," Evil Jean - now, in Logan's mind, Evil Sausage thing - said, clearly trying to think of a skin saving alibi. "It's a different age - " 

"One that you belong in, most assuredly," Bob agreed, nodding. "Which is why I can't let you. You understand." 

"We won't let you send us back," she/it insisted. 

That made Bob pause, and the smile on his face was silkily menacing, like that was one of the most blackly funny death threats he had ever heard. "Hate to tell ya this, mate, but even if you did get Arthur Anderson to cook the books for ya, eight halfs will never equal one." 

It took Logan a moment to get what Bob was saying, but he did. Eight demi-gods - if that's what they were - would never equal one full god. No wonder it was so scared of him - it was gone. The moment Bob showed up, it had no chance at all. He almost felt sorry for it. 

They had all recovered from the sudden energy flood and stood - Ammy ripped her arm out of Logan's grasp when he tried to help her stand up - and Logan popped his claws as he sneered at the seven former Jeans. Their empty eyes glanced about nervously, and they took a step back. 

"What up man?" Marcus asked, the tone in his voice suggesting he thought he'd lost his mind. 

"They're mortal now," Logan told him. "Remember? Bob made 'em mortal." 

"Oh yeah," he agreed. Marc gave them a leering grin that made them take another step back. 

"Wanna piece of this?" Logan asked Amaranth, but too late - she was already storming over towards them. So he and Marcus rushed the rest of the swollen sausage men, who were apparently helpless without their demi-god powers. 

"You can think it, but you'll never do it," Bob warned the former evil Jean. Bob was more than recovered, Logan realized - it was like he was reenergized. He could feel the power Bob was giving off from here, like he was exciting all the electrons in the air. No wonder they were so damn scared of him. 

Logan sliced through the torso of one of the sausage guys, and once he pulled his claws out, he had to repress a shudder of revulsion. They were made up of flesh that was half dead and half reptile; it was grey and sinewy, and hung in strips from his claws like torn cloth. They ripped apart easily, like they were made of old, rotting meat. No wonder they needed the life force of others so badly. 

"Wonder if the venom works," Marc said, grabbing a sausage guy by the arm. It immediately froze and keeled over, toppling like a statue. It hit the ground with a dull thud, and didn't move. "Yep, guess so." 

Ammy had grabbed one by the head, and was now repeatedly ramming her bent knee into his face; he could hear the breaking of its bones. No magic until she beat the living shit out of at least one, apparently. If she was representative of Aussie women, the next time he went there, he was going to wear a cup. It was possible ( probable ) she was this way because she was a itch, a demi-god, a Bob relative, or some combination thereof, but you could never be too careful. 

Some of them tried to fight back, but it was pointless, and the fight was over far too soon. A few slashes from him, a few kicks in the face courtesy of Amaranth, and a few vicious right hooks from Marc, and the former Jeans were in pieces on the dead ground around them. The only one still standing was their former Alpha Jean, still cowed by Bob's high intensity gaze. It looked like it wanted to do something, but realized it's options were exactly bupkis and nothing. 

"I don't want to go back there," it insisted, but in a sort of hangdog voice, as if it had started to accept it was inevitable. 

"You can't be here," Bob told it, not unkindly. "It's not your world anymore." 

"But we were doing so well." 

"There are always gonna be Humans with fucked up priorities. I'll send some of 'em to ya if I can, okay?" Bob was being strangely kind to them. Logan wondered why. 

It crossed its swollen grey arms over its bloated chest in a strangely nervous gesture, and said, "Couldn't you just replace the seals?" 

Bob gave it a disappointed look, like it should have known better. "Ta ta, Xhal. Be good now." Bob made a sort of dismissive hand gesture, and reality seemed to bend around Xhal, swallow him whole. It swallowed the parts of all his friends, apparently, because when they looked around, they were no longer calf deep in their remains. 

Bob then let out a huge martyr's sigh, sagging dramatically, and said, "You can stop hiding now, Xhos." 

The second, kinder but fundamentally useless Jean, appeared, still lurking nervously behind the jagged spear of a dead tree trunk. She was still in Jean guise, so Bob hadn't removed it from all of them. "I tried to scare them away," she said pathetically. She even gave Bob a sad puppy dog look, but he didn't think she was faking - she was honestly at a loss for what she was supposed to have done. 

"I know. Would you like to go home now?" 

She nodded, and what looked like genuine tears sparkled in her eyes. "This isn't my world. They don't love us here anymore; they don't heed our calls." 

"It's a new age," he commiserated sympathetically. 

"Will you put the seals back?" 

Bob shook his head. "Nothing that fragile. I'm gonna lock the door behind ya, okay?" 

She nodded vigorously, and seemed mollified by that. "Thank you." 

"Live to serve," he deadpanned, and Jean seemed to disappear behind the tree for good. 

Amaranth walked over to him, feet slapping the dead earth, and when he turned around to face her, she kicked him in the shin. "Ow!" 

"You buggery bastard! You've been gone for too long, you fucking larrikin!" She snapped, then seemed to tackle him with a bear hug. 

Bob put his arms around her, and said, "Aww sweetie, I told you'd I'd be back. I'm sorry." She buried her face in his chest, and he kissed her on the top of the head. "It's okay, Ammy. I'm back for good." 

"Until the next disaster." 

"Naw. I got a lot of beings who owe me now. I'd say I'm here for a good long while." 

"Better be," she agreed, pulling away from him. She sniffed and wiped her arm across her eyes. There was no fucking way she was crying, was there? He didn't think Amaranth was capable of crying. 

Bob kept ahold of her arms, and looked her over carefully, just like he was her dad ... okay, great great grandfather. "You okay, hon?" 

She nodded. "I was just about to kick their arses when you spoiled it." 

Bob nodded back, trying not to smile. "I'm known for my bad timing. Ah well, you'll get 'em next time." 

"What? No way - I ain't gettin' outta bed 'cause some of your iffy mates get in a kafuffle with some goddos who're madder than cut snakes." 

Marcus leaned over and muttered, "Does she always talk like this?" 

Logan shrugged. "All I know is she curses a lot." 

"Are those Australian curses?" 

He really had to think about that. "I ... don't know." 

"Wanna head back?" Bob asked. 

"Do I?" She scoffed. "Fuck yeah. This place is a heap, and I'm knackered." 

"Then go on." He gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead. "But don't tell Hel I'm back yet. If she finds out I didn't visit her first, she'll kick my ass until it's concave." 

She nodded, almost smirking at him. "You and your relationships." 

"I'm just askin' for trouble, aren't I?" He agreed, giving her that Cheshire Cat grin again. "Night, sweetheart." 

"Stop gettin' yourself nearly killed," she shot back, then seemed to disappear into thin air. Logan had no idea if Amaranth had teleported herself, or if Bob had sent her back home. Did it matter? 

Bob then looked at them both and grinned, holding his arms out wide, as if he expected a hug. "Hey Logan, got any sugar for me?" 

Marcus laughed, and Logan just glowered at him, which made Bob laugh. Apparently his near death experience didn't make him any less of an asshole. "Can the bad jokes," he snapped. "How about telling us what the fuck just happened here?" 


	9. Part 9

"The short version or the long version?" Bob asked, and grinned at Logan's subsequent death glare. "They used to rule this place, but the internecine squabbling got a little heavy, and then their worshippers were killed off by a combination of conquistadors and smallpox. They began to become a problem to the local full gods, and - " 

"They were locked off in a side dimension," Logan interrupted. "Yeah, yeah, we know that part. What was all the rest of that shit? How did you know them?" 

Bob shrugged a single shoulder. "I know most of the half caste. They need a champion in the higher realms, and it's generally me." 

"Because you're responsible for so many yourself?" Marc guessed. 

Bob gave him a wink, but didn't say yes or no. "Xhal and his clan got a bit fucked up, as you can see. Xhos and his side never got used to not bein' worshipped - you could call them the old guard. They needed adoration to survive and didn't get it. Xhos languished, but Xhal went out and got a different kind of energy." 

"A do it yourselfer?" Logan said, with a dismissive shake of his head. 

"Exactly." Bob took a good long look at their surroundings, and sighed heavily as he dug his hands into the front pockets of his pants. The leather looked so tight Logan was surprised he had room for his hands. "Bloody hell, Xhal really toasted this place, didn't he?" 

"He went a little bugfuck on the all you can eat buffet," Marcus agreed. "So, you're a god?" 

Bob scoffed. "Now who told you that?" He quickly changed the subject. "We ready to go home?" 

Logan shook his head, wondering when - if ever - Bob would just come clean about this. "No, we wanna stay and party. What do you think?" 

Bob just smirked, showing off model perfect dimples and making his ( now normal ... well, for him ) cobalt eyes bright with mirth. "I thought as much. You could at least say you're glad to see me, you know. You doin' okay?" 

"Can we do this later?" He asked impatiently. He didn't want to discuss this - he wanted to go have a shower, a beer, and maybe a nap. Maybe he was glad Bob was back and okay, but for some reason he couldn't work up being happy about it. 

Bob quirked an eyebrow at him, but didn't force the issue. "So how are you, Marcus?" 

He shrugged. "I've had better vacations, but business is good." 

"I bet. Good on ya." Bob then looked back at the oil derricks towering over them, still working in spite of the fact that there was no longer anything living here. "The modern root of all evil." Bob said something in that impenetrable language, and the drill stopped working. The silence was total - no bird song, no wind rustling through the leaves - and it was completely fucking eerie. 

Then they heard the metal creaking. 

It was like a rusty door hinge at first, then one creak bled into another, and they watched as the metal of the drilling rig started collapsing in on itself, like the entire thing was imploding. It was happening to all the drilling rigs they could see from their vantage point the same thing happening to all the derricks. 

"There, no more crude is gonna come out of Santo Marco," Bob said. "If they want oil, they're just gonna have to invade a country like everyone else." 

Marcus chuckled knowingly. "You're a cynic after my own heart." 

"Aww, thanks." 

"You don't mind if I'm still an atheist, do ya?" 

"Why would I mind? Hell, if I were mortal, I'd be one too. The gods I know don't give a shit about you - why should you give a shit about them?" 

"You're a very cool guy about all this." 

Bob shrugged. "I'm Australian - we're a laid back people. " Aware that Amaranth had just been here, he quickly amended, "Usually." He then clapped his hands together and rubbed them, as if eager to move on. "So, are we ready to go?" 

"We were ready to go five minutes ago," Logan carped. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Marc scrutinizing him. "Hey Meatwad, what's this about?" 

Meatwad? 

But Bob just gave him a kindly smile. "Logan gets a little grumpy when he can't kick some ass. So where to? New York?" 

"No," Logan snapped, instantly aware his answer was far more vehement than he would have liked. Oh fuck, this was Bob he was talking to anyways - why didn't he just fucking tattoo it on his forehead? 

Marcus noticed the reaction too, and his eyebrows dipped down towards his goggles as he realized what it was bugging him. "How about Baltimore, man? My place." 

Logan didn't know if he was talking to him or talking to Bob. But Bob took as meant for him. "Goin' down to Baltimore, goin' in an off white Honda," Bob sang, and then made a sort of "wrap it up" gesture with his hand. 

In the blink of an eye, they were standing in the spacious living room of Marc's loft, the sun slanting through the closed blinds turning the room a burnished yellow-gold. Bob let out a low whistle as he took a long look round the loft. "Groovy bachelor pad, Marc." 

"Thanks. It's pretty swank. Hey, I had a bag of weapons back in Santo Marco - " 

"You mean that one?" Bob asked, pointing at the couch. Indeed, the bag was sitting right there on the end, as if it had been waiting to get noticed. 

"Cool beans, " Marc said, giving him a rangy grin. As he grabbed the bag and disappeared into his bedroom to sort out his armaments, Bob turned to him and gave him a bright smile. 

"So, Logan, once you get cleaned up and find a shirt, you wanna go get a beer? Then maybe you can tell me why you hate me now." 

Logan glowered at him, then turned away with a sigh. There was no way to win a staring contest with Bob. There was no way to win anything while Bob was around. The bastard. 

18 

    The thing about people was they were very easy to read. And not in a way they ever suspected. 

Marcus was cool about everything, as he was inclined to be, despite his short temper. He had a mercenary temperament, in that he knew caring about something beyond the surface level was a good way to get hurt or dead. And yet he couldn't completely submerge the tendency, no matter how hard he tried. He still cared about his "people", as he saw them, and he honestly did care about Logan. He would never say it, but he felt he and Logan were somewhat kindred spirits, and he was probably right. They were both - as Marcus saw it - "hardcore", and that was certainly true. Also, he also knew he could trust Logan, because Logan didn't betray anyone as a matter of course. He was - to quote Marc's feeling on it - very "samurai" about keeping his word. 

Bob wondered if Marcus would ever know how accurate he was. Probably not - even Logan didn't know. Okay, he heard the former Dayu Takabe refer to him - several times - as the "Yashida's samurai" while under Bob's sway, but he didn't believe it; he refused to believe it. He insisted it was a "figure of speech", that he was nothing more than their "hired gun". "A gaijin samurai," he snorted derisively. "That's somethin' out of a Clavell novel." 

The most oddly funny thing about that was Logan, in his mind, thought he had said "white samurai" - not gaijin, the Japanese (and slightly derisive) term for white foreigners, and Logan never realized he had accidentally slipped into Japanese. Logan did that a lot, slipping into other languages, usually around people who also spoke it, but he usually realized it immediately afterward. Logan's mind - bless him - was a complete fucking mess: scrambled eggs in the cranium. 

That was part of the reason why he was so amazing, even if he never bothered to admit it. He could walk and talk, and be relatively coherent - and in more than one language. Bob knew his mind was far more different than other people's, in a way that couldn't be measured by current technology. Although Logan thought he only heard people's thoughts, he could "see" them if he wished, and whether simply "audio" or "visual", there was a certain rhythm to the chaos of people's thoughts (demons differed according to species). But the brain scrambling Logan had undergone was reflected in the chaos of his thought rhythms - they had more "holes" than most people's (for obvious reasons), but here was something Logan didn't know about himself, and would never know: his thoughts were multilingual. He often thought in many different languages at the same time. English was his primary language, but he had a surprising amount of thoughts in Japanese, and third on the list was French (well, he was from Canada-that probably explained that ... but how did he explain Cantonese being number four in the line up). But that was why he sometimes slipped into other tongues without being aware of it - some part of his brain had been "thinking" in that language, therefore it was its language - it was not odd to his brain. But Logan didn't know that. How could he when his brain instantly interpreted  
almost every language you could name? The mind scrambling had left Logan somewhat disconnected from his own thought processes, so he would probably always be something of a stranger to himself. It was a shame, because Bob was curious how he could pick up all these languages so easily. 

Bob knew how he could - seeing and hearing other people's thoughts gave you a definite edge in picking up the language. But since Logan wasn't a telepath, something had to give him an edge over others in the language department. Could it be something as simple as his hearing being above average? Sensory intuition? Some mutation in the language processing center of his brain? Because Logan had been essentially broken from that connection, no one would probably ever know; he'd be the idiot savant of languages - able to speak and read nearly everything, and yet perfectly unable to tell you how. 

He liked Marcus, and promised to treat him to a night out later - he just had to talk to Logan now, in private. Marcus seemed to understand, and wished him luck. "Some heavy shit's happened," Marcus confided to him. "He's pretending to be cool with it ... but man, he ain't." 

Bob knew that, but he thanked him for the warning anyways. Logan was just bristling with resentment towards him, and it didn't take Bob long to figure out why. Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. No wonder Xhal had taken her guise to fuck with Logan. 

But Bob knew Logan had to tell him - he knew he needed to get this off his chest before he exploded in rage and hurt someone. And if Logan wanted to funnel it towards him, that was fine - Bob knew he could take it. 

Rather than take Logan out drinking in Baltimore, which he didn't really know, he transported himself and Logan back to the Way Station ... well, after he'd showered and changed into some clothes that weren't bloodstained and covered with bits of rotting demi-god flesh. It was surprising what a bummer that could be. 

Lau was on shift at the bar, not Lia, and in a way that made things easier, as Lau just thought he'd been away on vacation. The bar was sparsely populated with customers, and when two vampires recognized Logan, they slipped out the back. Logan was too busy fuming quietly to notice. 

Bob got them both a beer and made sure the demons remaining in the bar could neither see nor hear them. The jukebox was playing one of his favorite obscure Faith No More songs, and he was singing along with it before he realized what he was singing. "Gods fall, with each pleasure that you give. You fall, and take the whole world with you.  
But will you even bother to look down?" He stopped as he returned to the table and put a beer down in front of Logan. He probably would have taken it personally if he sang the "The circumstance it turns you inside out, so we can have peace before you find out what's inside your head " bit. Some ironies were nasty, and Logan was in no mood to humor anyone. Was it his fault so many songs seemed to encapsulate bits of Logan's life? 

"So, gonna fill me in what I missed?" He asked with false cheer, before helping himself to a big gulp of his Castlemain XXX. He was going to need serious alcohol for this. Also, it tasted good after so much time without a body. You missed on the little things like taste and a good, solid buzz. 

Logan glowered at him over his beer. "You know what happened, Bob. I know damn well what you're doing." 

"What's that?" 

Logan's stare was molten enough to set the furniture on fire. Yes, he did know, but this was for Logan's good, whether he knew it or not. "She's dead, Bob. Is that what you wanted me to say?" 

Bob had no idea why, but looking into Logan's mind, he saw ... what the hell was that? It was like an energy trace, but not his ... new. Not demonic - or at least not a demon he recognized. Way too powerful an energy signature to be mutant, and too powerful to be anything Xhal and Xhos could have done. They couldn't effect anyone permanently anyways. Did Logan know about it? How could he not know? "Are you sure?" 

Logan scoffed derisively. "She's dead? Oh, I don't know-she only had two tons of water crash down on her head. I'm sure she's fine." 

Bob sat back in his chair, feeling the resentment boiling up in him. "Just say it, Logan." 

He glared at him, fuming, and finally he said it, but it came out as more of an aggrieved shout. "Where the fuck were you, Bob? Where the fuck were you?!" Logan then put his head in hands, his shoulders stooped, as if he was bending under a sudden and savage weight. 

Logan knew why he wasn't there - he didn't want an answer. He just didn't want Jean dead. And right now, for all his anger, Logan was full of self-loathing - he felt he had failed Jean in some way, like he had failed so many others. He was also thinking (in Japanese-he didn't know that, though) 'I could have survived that. And if I didn't, what difference would it have made?' 

And while Logan was lost in his remorseful thoughts, Bob caught the briefest glimpse of the energy thread again, twisting in his mind. Fuck, was that thing still active? It was still connected to something. 

What he told Logan was true - once anything had cut a "doorway" through your mind, that doorway always remained. The passage could go dormant - the one Xavier had left was currently dormant, for example - but this "thread" wasn't; it was ... 

... it led straight through the passage Jean had left in Logan's mind. Did that mean something? It must have - how could something "piggyback" the passage Jean left in his mind? He'd never heard of such a thing before, and he'd encountered all sorts of weird shit. But that wasn't Jean - Jean always had lots of power potential ( and he'd been in her mind; he knew that better than she had ), but nothing like this. 

Logan finally dry washed his face and looked up, forcing Bob to focus on him. "My eyes are normal," Bob told him, giving him the slightest push. Only Logan would notice that his pupils were larger than normal, and would know what that meant - that he was looking inside his own mind. 

Logan didn't notice, exactly like he was supposed to do. "I don't suppose you can bring her back." 

Bob was tempted to ask once more if he was sure she was dead, but didn't. After all, being able to swap bodies or remain a conscious, thinking entity - such as he had just done - without a physical body was hardly a Human thing to do. "No, I'm sorry. I don't do resurrections. I can keep people from dying, but I can't give them a  jump start once they're completely dead." 

Logan looked at him dubiously, jaw muscles tight. He didn't believe him, and didn't want to believe him, both of which were fine. It was Logan's choice. After a moment, he looked away, presumably at the bar. "They said they could, you know." 

It didn't take a lot to guess who he meant. "Xhal? No, he didn't have that kind of power. Except, ya know, making zombies." 

He nodded, still looking off at the bar. He didn't want to look at him, because Logan didn't want him to see his desperation, although he knew he probably did and resented him for it. Bob felt bad for Logan at times like these, but he knew if he mentioned it, Logan would try to kill him. "I figured as much," Logan admitted. "Too good to be true." He glanced back at him, and tried to sound blasé as he asked, "But there are gods who can do that shit, right?" 

Bob really did feel bad for him now. He knew, after the death of his first wife, Maggie - way back in Botany Bay, long before he rediscovered his powers - he'd have done anything, cut any deal, to get her back. He'd have done what Logan was trying to figure a way to do - switch places, swap his death for hers. It never worked that way, but it was a nice, tormenting thought. It was probably his first thought about Mariko too - "If I died, she wouldn't have." It still wasn't true, even after all this time. "There are, but you can't trust a one of them. There are always loopholes and high prices for such deals." 

And it was Maggie's death that spurred the suicidal agony that let him discover who he truly was - not just a blue blooded Belial demon passing for Human, but something else entirely. So as horrible as deaths were, they did have a purpose; sometimes they spurred great changes. But Logan was in no mood to hear that now. (Besides, if he was right, Mariko's death put Logan on the road that led him to getting mutilated  - hardly a positive.) 

Logan nodded and looked down into his beer, in case there was something fascinating at the bottom of the can. "I know. No free lunch, right?" 

"Right." He gleaned that the energy signature in his mind was connected to something that was bothering him. He let Logan see the look on his face. 

"What?" He snapped irritably. 

Bob had to struggle not to smile. "Something else is bothering you too." 

"No," he denied, a knee jerk dismissal. At Bob's continued scrutinizing look, he relented with a reluctant shrug. "I've had these weird dreams lately. Weirder than usual." 

Here it was. "Beyond torture chamber stuff?" 

Logan nodded, and had a gulp of his beer before getting down to it. "This energy thing has been interrupting  my dreams lately. It wasn't you, was it?" 

"No. You'd know anyways, wouldn't ya?" 

"Yeah, but ... just wanted to make sure. You can be a dick at a times." 

"Only at times?" He grinned. But Logan's snide look made him at least get to pretend to sober up. "Okay, tell me about this thing." 

"I can't. I mean I always forget about the thing after I wake up; I can't remember it no matter how hard I try. I just know that there's something ..." 

"Do you know what it wants?" 

Logan shook his head, grimacing in frustration. "No. I just know it wants something from me." 

"But you don't know what?" 

"No." 

"Bad or good?" 

Logan shrugged with a hand, making a sour face that suggested this was a real sore point for him. "No fuckin' clue. Could go either way. But it hasn't killed me, so that's good, right?" 

"Usually." Was it covering its tracks, or was its energy flux so erratic that its matrix broke up as a matter of course? The only way to find out was to try and follow it. 

Logan raised an eyebrow at him. "That didn't sound promising." 

"Well, it's the unknown - by definition, it's unpredictable." He could feel Logan's exhaustion from here. It was no surprise he was tired - he'd only had his throat cut, after all. His blood volume was probably adequate now, but he needed rest to get his equilibrium back. Logan knew that, but didn't like it. 

Bob took a sip of his beer, hiding his mouth from his view. "Hear me, but don't notice me talking," Bob said, giving him a slight push. "When the intruder comes back, you will not only remember it - in spite of what it does - but you will be able to confront it as you wish. And then, once it's gone, you will use the doorway, and you will find me." 

He would have tried to laid in wait for the thing, but it was so powerful he was sure it would know he was there, and abort. If Logan could come get him immediately after it had gone, he might be able to follow a fresh trail out to its source. He was sure Logan would agree with this tactic, so he didn't feel too bad about it. He'd have told Logan, but it was best he wasn't consciously aware of it, so if the thing was a mind reader it wouldn't glean the trap. 

Logan tried to swallow a yawn, and Bob said, going back to normal voice and putting down his beer, "There's a room in the back. You can crash." 

He shook his head, which was what Bob expected. "I'm good." 

"You're not good," Bob pointed out gently. "You're shagged out. Nearly bleeding to death does that to people." 

Logan glanced at him sharply, but even it had a weariness to it. "Nearly doesn't count." Bob just stared at him until he  sighed. "What d'ya want me to say, Bob?" 

"I don't want you to say anything. I just want you to give yourself a break. No one is perfect, and you don't always have to see how indestructible you can be. Backing off for a bit is no crime." 

That made him snort derisively again. "I'm as far from perfect as you can get." 

"So why do you hold yourself to a higher standard than other people? So you have the right to be as cocky as hell?" 

Logan's eyes narrowed in angry distaste. "I never make any claim I can't back up." 

"I know - I didn't say you weren't honest. If anyone has the right to be so confident in themselves and their abilities, it's you. But you know, everyone's allowed to bobble the ball a bit now and then. In fact, unless you can control entropy, it's pretty much impossible not to." 

Logan's intense gaze didn't let up. That was one of his more loveable tendencies - he knew he couldn't win against him, and yet Logan still insisted on trying to fight him. He was a pigheaded, stubborn mule, and Bob found that an endearing trait. Okay, he knew he was weird, but he admired the people who kept going, even though they knew in the end it wouldn't do a damn bit of good. He'd been like that himself, hence him getting the shit whipped out of him in Botany Bay. How many times did he get strung up for a meeting with the cat o' nail tails? Shit, he couldn't even remember anymore. Good thing he had a demon body, or his back would still be ground chuck. "I don't like bein' psychoanalyzed," Logan sneered. "So stop it." 

"I wasn't psychoanalyzing you," he replied. "Just givin' you a helpful hint." He then flashed a sarcastically innocent smile, and Logan rolled his eyes and looked off towards the door, watching as a large horned Grbek demon squeezed inside the bar. 

Bob kept the corner of his eye on Logan ( if he looked at him straight on, he'd instantly pick it up ), and wondered what the "intruder" in Logan's mind was as Radiohead warbled from the jukebox, "Just 'cause you feel it doesn't mean it's there." 

There were benefits in having Ganesha as a personal friend. Sure, he sometimes left a bathtub ring in your swimming pool, but he also could bend entropy away from you, and it wasn't all that unusual from him to use music to communicate, since he was very body conscious and didn't like crowds. Bob wondered if he was doing that now. Was there a through line here? 

That also reminded him he had to replace Logan's Ganesha fetish, the little jade one he gave him for his trip to London. Logan kept trying to throw it away, and of course, since it was under Ganesha's sway, it kept going back to where it had been before ( no entropy - therefore no destruction, and that included being discarded, unless Ganny wished it so ). Eventually he asked Nariko, the matter changing Japanese girl, to make it chewing gum - she did, and Logan chewed it up and spit it out in a garbage can at a highway rest stop somewhere between New York and Connecticut. Logan could be a real card at times. 

"You know, maybe I should call Wes," Logan said half-heartedly. "Thank him and shit, let him know we're alive, and Santo Marco's a mystical sinkhole no more." 

"Call him?" Bob repeated. "Mate, he lives only a couple of miles from here. You could drop by, ya know. Bring him a fruit basket or something." 

Logan looked back at him, chuckling in disbelief. "A fruit basket?" 

"Well, sure. He'd never expect a fruit basket, 'specially from you. It'd be a nice gesture." 

Logan shook his head and looked down at the table, trying to hide his smile. "Thanks for helpin' me save the Southern Hemisphere - here's some oranges." 

"It's the thought that counts." 

Logan chuckled and rubbed his eyes, trying to hold back another yawn. Was he going to have to push him to make him get some sleep before he passed out? "So how was the Higher Realms?" Logan asked, obviously trying to change the subject. "I was wonderin' if they were gonna let you out or not." 

"Well, much you like you, people only want me around if I can be controlled or manipulated in some fashion. Otherwise I'm more pain than I'm worth." 

Logan grimaced and nodded in sage agreement. At least they had that in common. 

It was split almost down the middle, those who wanted him to stay, insisting the Realms needed him, and those that basically wanted him out or dead ( preferably both ). He had broken one of the unwritten laws - the biggest they had - and yet he had done so to save their asses. They couldn't condemn and "sentence" him for killing a god when they'd all but asked him to do it, to spare them from death at Kumiho's "hands". It was a little distressing to realize even a professional outsider had a specific role in a hierarchy. Logan was the only one he knew who could understand that, because that was the role he played for Xavier - he was the professional last resort. Every system, every group, needed someone who could do the dirty work for them, so they could conserve their sense of moral superiority, and yet still be safe from those with far fewer principals. 

Logan was unable to stifle his yawn this time, so he tried to lose it by chugging his beer instead. 

"Ya know, I ain't lettin' you pass out here," Bob told him. "Would you get in the back already? I assure ya, Hel ain't here." 

Logan smirked, but Bob sensed the wash of guilt before Logan said, "Uh, look, after you disappeared ... Hel and I, uh ..." 

"I know," he assured him, touched that he would feel some guilt about it, even after everything. "Ask me if I care." 

He nodded, still feeling some guilt, but aware that it didn't matter to Bob at all. "She's a hell of a woman, ya know." 

"I know," he agreed. 

"She loves you, you know." 

"Yeah, I know. Can't help but love her for that." How could you not love Helga? She was another professional outsider, like the pair of them. They were like their own little pariah club. "Now, are you goin' back there, or do you think the crack motel a couple of blocks away from here might be better?" 

Logan scowled at him - which he expected - and gave in with a sigh. "You're not gonna let this go, are you?" 

"Nope." 

"What about this energy thing?" 

"I hope it shows." He hoped that Logan understood he couldn't say more than that. 

Logan got it without needing a push. He nodded grimly and stood up, the sound of the chair legs scraping against the floor getting a few odd looks from demons who had no idea anyone was at that table. "In the back, huh?" 

"Use your nose. It's the room that doesn't smell like my office." 

"Or a portal to another realm?" 

Bob smiled and gave him a thumb's up sign. "Got it in one." 

"I bet it's standard in all homes in L.A. , right?" Logan asked sarcastically, as he headed towards the back. 

"Nope - it's optional. I had to pay extra and everything." After a pause, Bob caught a glimpse of something in Logan's mind, something else that was bothering him that he had no intention of mentioning. "It wasn't your fault, you know." 

Logan froze in his tracks, spine stiffening as if he'd just taken a bullet there. "What?" 

"Stryker. He was bullshitting you. You "volunteered for it" - yeah, my rosy red ass. Blame the victim mentally is the second refuge of scoundrels, right after patriotism." 

Logan had his back to him, and refused to turn and face him. He was angry and frightened, and he didn't want to talk about this, but it needed to be said by someone. "Drop it,okay?" 

"You know he lied to you, Logan - he said he gave you claws. Need I remind you about the scars on Dayu Takabe's face? Bloody Friday? You already had them." 

He swallowed hard. "He just made them adamantium." He had whispered that, as if he couldn't bring himself to say it fully aloud and possibly make it real. "But Bloody Friday proves his point all the same. I'm a killer, an animal." 

"No, mate, you're not." 

Logan's head snapped back towards him now, anger etched in his face, a mask barely covering the pain. "Do I have to start reciting my body count?" 

"Leave Bloody Friday out of it. They murdered your wife, Logan, right in front of you." That made Logan wince and turn away. "There isn't a jury anywhere who'd convict you." And Bob knew if he told Logan the kicker - that not only did they poison Mariko and drop her in his lap, but they made him kill her to spare her from further agony. Was there anything more psychologically violent and cruel than that? Making someone kill the thing they loved? Of course it made him snap; it would make anyone snap, if it didn't break them entirely. Logan would probably never remember doing it, simply because his mind couldn't deal with the pain of that single, agonizing act. 

Bob knew if he told Logan about that, Logan would never view the Bloody Friday incident as cold blooded murder again. But he also knew, if he told him, that something inside Logan - probably that little kernel of hope for better things, and his wonderful, recurring memories of Mariko that he was having sporadically - would die violently, and never return. It would turn him to ice, from the inside out. 

"Do you think, if we wiped the memories of a serial killer, implanted some vague, disturbing memories, and dropped him on the street, he'd suddenly be a good person?" Bob asked, taking a slightly different tack. "No, he would not. Are you perfect? No, of course not, but you're no psychopath. We are the sum of our memories, but what you have to understand about people is that there's also something else inside us - a core aspect of our personality, if you will - that remains within us, a residue of our personality and our memories merged together. And even when the memory goes, that's still there. I know, because even when I thought I was just a Belial demon, I was the same old jackass that got me exiled in the first place. And ironically got me exiled again, to Botany Bay. 

"It is with you - even Xavier saw that. You've done dark things, mate, desperate things, angry things ... but I see right through you, and I can tell you, with all honestly, you are not a killer. You're a Human, warts and all - just like almost everything else in this dimension." 

Logan snorted, not even looking back as he wended his way through the tables and disappeared into the darker recesses of the bar. But he paused in the inky hallway, and said, low enough that Bob could barely hear him, "Maybe that's bad enough." Then he was gone, having found the room easily. He still had disquieting thoughts, but Bob knew he had gotten through to him, even if only temporarily. 

Bob sat back in his chair, holding his oversized can of beer in both hands, and sang along quietly with the jukebox. "She thinks she missed the train to Mars, she's out back counting stars." He wondered if that was some sort of clue. 

But there were some things too cryptic even for him. So he let the sound of guitars wash over him, and waited to see if the other shoe was going to drop. 


	10. Part 10

19 

    Logan woke up on a roof, feeling the scrape of cold masonry beneath his hands as he forced himself to sit up. 

It was night, but the glow of lights from the city around him washed out the stars; the sky was simply a deep indigo, midnight black bled out by an overabundance of electric light. He stood and looked down, to get his bearings. He was maybe twenty stories up, on a tall building overlooking most of the other office buildings in this densely developed area. 

Down the narrow street on the neighboring side was a huge, bright neon animated sign, the waves of red light advertising Coke, while the waves of green light advertised Fuji Film, on signs slightly larger than your average billboard. They lit up the blocks like colored spotlights, and he understood instantly he was in the Ginza section of Tokyo. Only here did neon technology and towering office blocks of glass and steel meet wooden noodles houses and traditional paper lanterns hanging on strings to illuminate narrow back alleys. 

He vaguely recalled Marc's Blade Runner poster, and realized the art director for that film probably just took photos of Tokyo and Hong Kong and just added some futuristic touches to the cityscapes. Both cities seemed to have an indefinable touch of the alien about them, and the familiarity of the skyscrapers seemed to make it worse. 

Logan wondered vaguely why he was here. He felt sore, like maybe he'd been beaten up, or maybe he'd slept up here, and he could taste old blood in his mouth. What little clothes he wore - and they were a shambles; rags in everything but name - showed signs of being shot, stabbed, torn, and burnt, and he'd bled on them fairly copiously. But not all of the blood was his. 

The air around him was cold, reducing his breath to white vapor, but he felt very warm, almost hot - still healing, then. When was this? The last time he was in Japan, he didn't get to the Ginza. He was hauling Scott's bony butt around, looking for Nariko - they didn't even stay for nightfall. 

Oh shit - Bloody Friday. Was this Bloody Friday? 

He looked down at the tattered remains of his shirt, and wondered if any of this blood was Mariko's. 

He didn't want to be here. He knew he was asleep, and tried to wake himself up, but he wasn't sure how you did that. He looked down at the network of streets below him, and considered jumping. You always woke up before you hit the ground, right? 

He got a sense he was no longer alone, twenty stories above the city of Tokyo, and looked over his shoulder warily, ready to fight. 

The energy thing. There it was again, a human sized chevron of red-orange flames that weren't exactly fire, on the opposite end of the roof. It hovered just off of it, and nothing else was caching - if that was even possible. It seemed to be constantly moving, and yet still; he could feel almost unbearable power coming off of it, that wasn't quite heat but was close. He had to squint to look at it directly - it was bright enough to hurt his eyes. 

Once again he felt the deep dichotomy he had encountered before. The urge to run, to get away from the thing as fast as he could, and the sister desire to stay, to let the flames - or whatever they were - consume him, burn him alive and finally give him peace. He held up a hand to help shade his eyes, and demanded, "What are you? What do you want from me?" 

There was nothing, silence, as the fiery thing not made of true flames seemed to undulate in its own breeze, large segments of psychic fire unfurling briefly, like tentacles or wings. But it didn't move any closer to him, and if there was any hostility, he wasn't picking up on it ... yet. "Can you even talk?" He wondered, suddenly seized by the fact that it probably couldn't. 

( Psychic fire? Why the hell had he thought that? Where had that come from, and what the fuck did it mean? ) 

He waited, hoping it would call him a dumb ass, but there was nothing but the sound of an occasional car below, and the hiss of wind through the branches. 

What the fuck ..? What branches?! This was the Ginza - there were no trees, and certainly not up here. He concentrated, listened harder, and realized what he was hearing was a voice: layered, whispered, and inhuman. It was like hearing the words of ghosts through a layer of time. It was probably female because it was so delicate, but he couldn't even be sure about that. 

He couldn't make out a single word. He could occasionally make out syllables, but that seemed less than helpful, especially since they seemed to be completely out of synch, with no two in a row. It also seemed like they were a recording being played backwards. 

Logan squinted into the light, and seemed to see something within it. A dark shape, almost humanoid. He inched closer, hoping for a better look. "Why can't I see you?" He asked. "And why can't I understand you? You're gonna have to help me out here, okay? You're gonna have to find another way to communicate." 

Flames flared out to the side, like wings being spread on a gigantic bird, and then something seemed to flash from within it, blinding him - 

- and when he opened his eyes, he was no longer on the roof of a building in the Ginza. He was in Jean's garden - her telepathic "safe place". "What the fuck..?" He began, looking around for the creature, but it wasn't here. Or was it? 

Looking up, he saw the sky seemed to be on fire. 

The red flames that weren't exactly flames seemed to have consumed the sky, and the clouds within, now black as if charred, seemed to writhe and spasm like living things being tortured. It cast Jean's garden in a bloody light, and the smell of roses had been superseded by the smell of sweet hay, with an undertone of desiccation. It was odd, because there didn't appear to be any hay anywhere, just greenery that looked like the color of old blood beneath the violently swirling light. 

Beyond the weigela bushes, where he has seen Jean the one time he was here ( she was lounging in a lawn chair, reading a book ), there was a new feature to the landscape - a pond. No, not a pond - it was too large and too deep, swallowing up the immediate horizon in its inky flatness. It was a lake. Alkali Lake. 

He winced, and snarled, "You bastard. You just want to torment me, huh, is that it? First Mariko, now Jean - what the fuck is it you want?!" 

Of course there was no answer. He was alone here, although he didn't feel alone; he could feel ... something. Something not quite eyes; not quite a presence; but something almost worse, although he couldn't define how or why, even to himself.  There was a path burned in the grass that hadn't been here before, and it led straight down to the lake. Is that what it wanted? It wanted him to go to the lake? 

In that one "dream", it had lived in the water - it had grabbed him, and ... tried  to pull him in? Was that what it was trying to do? "I don't drown," he told it angrily. "Not permanently. You're wasting your time." 

He waited for something to happen, for some kind of response, but there was nothing. A slight breeze rustled the leaves, made the surface of the dark water ripple, and he realized he'd have to go in there. Jean died in there. Why was he standing on the shore like some useless piece of shit? 

He discovered he was no longer wearing the bloody tatters of the Ginza, but all the ( mostly ) intact clothes he'd worn last time ( first time ) he was here. He stripped off his jacket and tossed it aside, and kicked off his boots as he remembered Amaranth saying scornfully, "Don't you ever wear a shirt?" He kept his shirts on as he waded into the icy cold water, an involuntary shiver shuddered through his body, but he continued on. This water was gelid, just like the mountain run off it was, and he could feel himself going numb from the knees down. Oh, fuck it - he dove into the water head first, as soon as he was sure he was deep enough, and the shock of the sudden, monstrous cold was enough to stop his heart. For a second - it was like being suspended over a void, the silence in his body and mind absolute and starkly beautiful, and then the sound of blood pounding in his head returned, the pins and needles pain of his circulation angrily racing beneath his frozen skin. He opened his eyes to the black water, and let his eyes sting as if being pelted with ice. 

He had to ignore the panic attack his body wanted to have, memories of being under water, inhaling water as he struggled against bindings that held him down to the bottom of the tank, kept him from breathing air - 

(His rage and terror was great enough that one day he broke them. That was how he finally escaped, wasn't it? Adrenaline - panic and rage - to the rescue.) 

- and while he squelched the fear, he could feel his heart racing as adrenaline dumped into his system, regardless of his present circumstances. His body had learned to associate submergence in water with pain. He ignored it as best he could. 

He had swam about twenty meters before he saw something moving beneath him. 

It was a glimmer of fire, like a brief flash of sunlight off the windshield of a moving car, but as he glanced down at the inky depths he could no longer see it. He went up for air, expecting to be dragged down, but it didn't happen. Looking around, feeling his wet clothes and the metal in his body threatening to drag him down, he saw that Jean's garden was gone. He was now surrounded by saw toothed mountains, rising on all sides like a titanic stone fence, the snow on their peaks blindingly white and untouched by Human presence or detritus. Back at Alkali Lake completely. 

But for whatever reason, the sky was still on fire, a boiling and angry red, like it was the end of the world. 

"What does this have to do with Jean?" He asked aloud, not sure if it could understand him or would care. "Why did you bring me back here?" 

No answer, and he wished he was surprised. There was nothing on the shore, where snow blanketed the land anew, and there was no sign that anything catastrophic had happened here. Sometimes nature's ability to heal rivaled his own. His teeth were chattering in spite of his best efforts to hold his jaw rigid, and he could feel his balls shriveling, pulling up inside him in an attempt to find warmth. He bet his lips were turning as blue as Bob's blood. "Fuck this shit," he snapped, taking a deep breath and submerging once again, his feet slapping the surface of the water as he dove, knifing through the water like he was born to it. 

He wondered briefly if he would find Jean's body. 

He was probably in the direct center of the lake when he saw the fireball coming towards him from the opposite side. It was speeding towards him at a rate that was impossible, suggesting it had little or no physical mass. He didn't know if it was going to kill him ( well, try ) or what, but he kept swimming towards it, ready to meet it head on - time to get this over with. He was tired of fucking around. 

The thing seemed to disappear for a moment, but then in a blink it was right there in front of him, and suddenly it surrounded him, a cloud of flame that evoked a cruel warmth that was far from physical. And before he could do anything - 

- images flashed through his mind, bang bang bang, as brutal as gunshots straight to the frontal lobe, along with sensations - touch, taste, smells - that didn't always make sense in context with the images flying by. He tried to grab on to some image, examine it, but it was difficult; they ripped like a tornado through his mind, and it honestly fucking hurt. 

But he saw Jean's face among the images. And he saw his, and Xavier's, and Scott's ... and Bob's. 

And blood. Lots of blood, a river, an ocean, spreading as flames consumed his mind, and the pain - far too intense to be merely physical  - overwhelmed him. He tried to pull away, to escape, but he was an insect trapped in amber that was rapidly solidifying around him, as the pressure and heat inside his brain made it feel like his head would explode any second. He could almost feel the plates of his skull separating under the strain, in spite of the adamantium plating, as lava coursed through his veins ... 

Logan woke up screaming, but rather than pop his claws, he grabbed his head, which still seemed to reverberate with the pain. He sat up, drawing his knees to his chest, and took several deep breaths, feeling the pain fade as air filled his lungs once more. It seemed his skull was still in one piece, and in no danger of breaking up. 

Now that he was away from it, he realized there was something about the thing - the presence - that reminded him of Jean. It had her smell, her taste ... her memories? Was that what he was getting? It was hard to say, it was a jumbled mess. A lifetime of thoughts put in a blender, and then, for good measure, shoved through a meat grinder. 

It was just tormenting him with her, wasn't it? It used his memories of her against him. But it made no sense - why? Why go to all this trouble for this? It was trying to tell him something about Jean. But neither of them had the language to understand each other. 

As soon as his adrenaline level started to ebb, and he could breathe normally, he got up and headed for the door. Logan had expected a cot in the storeroom, but Bob's "room in the back" was actually a tiny but functional sort of break room, with a water cooler in one corner, a mutant ficus in another ( it was taller than him ), and a small twin bed pushed up against the far wall. He guessed it might be used for quickies, but he figured it was probably just a place for employees to sack out between, before, or after shifts. Bob could be thoughtful like that. 

Logan had time to wonder why he felt compelled to talk to Bob as he walked out the door, down the small corridor, aware that the scent had changed in the front room. All he could smell was Bob, and all he could hear was him too, singing along to some song on the jukebox. " - when you're around me, I'm somebody else," he sang his voice almost comically deeper than the more soprano voiced man actually singing it. "Someone tell me why - " 

Bob stopped and stood instantly, turning to face him as he paused in the entrance way. The bar had cleared out - only Bob was here. Even Lau was gone from behind the bar. "It came back," Bob said. Not a question. 

He nodded, looking around at the empty bar. Something more was wrong here, namely he didn't get the sense that other people had ever been here at all. "Yeah, I ... I'm not sure what happened. I haven't really woken up, have I?" 

"No. Sorry, I suggested you come to me if it appeared, so I can try and follow it. I was afraid if I told you outright it would pick up the trap and leave." 

Logan felt a surge of anger, but nodded in understanding. It was possible the thing could have gotten it. But would it have cared? 

He felt Bob's eyes, and just by the way he was looking at him, he knew that Bob had seen everything that had happened. "Wow," Bob finally said, seemingly at a loss for words. A true rarity. 

"So what do you think?" 

"I think you're an incredibly brave person. To be afraid of something and go ahead and do it anyways - " 

"Spare me the pep talk," he interrupted impatiently, not wanting to hear this. He wasn't sure what he was referring to, but it didn't matter. "What the hell is it? What did it want?" 

Bob glanced off to the side as he thought, grimacing at nothing. "I'm not sure. It's all really weird, isn't it?" 

He sighed, and threw up his hands in frustration. "So it's a bust?" 

Bob shook his head. "No, of course not. I can say it definitely doesn't want to kill you. I don't think it knows its own strength, but it was certainly attempting communication." 

"What the fuck was it trying to say? It has something to do with Jean, doesn't it? Alkali Lake." 

"It certainly seems that way." 

"Seems? So you don't know what it was saying either?" 

Bob paused significantly before answering that. "It was an info glut. Again, it doesn't know its own strength." 

"How could it not?" Logan wondered. Sure, he had to figure out the limits of his own strength after waking up sans memory, but he did that pretty quick. Finding the metal in his body took a little longer. nonetheless the whole claws thing. 

He shrugged, using his hands more than his shoulders. "New to this dimension? New guise? I have no idea. But maybe I can find that out." Bob started to walk past him, but then stopped and clapped his hand on his shoulder. "You did stellar, mate. Why don't you go have some genuinely peaceful sleep for once in your life? You more than deserve it." 

Logan grabbed his arm to keep him from walking away - to follow it, of course. "Let me come with you." 

Bob shook his head, but his look was not unsympathetic. "I doubt this thing is Human, and until I get a good power gauge on it, I don't want you back with it. It almost hurt you badly without intention: think what would happen if it meant it." 

He had a point. He was still surprised his head hadn't exploded. Of course, even Bob had said it hadn't tried to kill him, but hey, didn't everything try to kill him eventually? "So, not Human, huh? What's it want with Jean? Or me, for that matter." 

Bob shook his head. "Got me, mate. I'll let you know when I find out." 

With that, Bob started down the dark hall, and he quickly faded away into the shadows. Logan considered going after him anyways, but knew the corridor would be just a hallway to him, and lead him only back to the break room. 

After a moment, Logan decided to return to it anyways. It wasn't like he had anything else to do. And besides, maybe later he could sort through all the images, and make some sense out of them. 

At least Bob had left him the promise of a dreamless sleep. That sounded amazingly good right now; even better than that small moment of oblivion. 

He wondered if he'd ever feel that again. 

20 

    The sun was high in the greenish tinged sky when Bob appeared on the black beach, a darker green orb in the pale lime ether. The beach house surrounded by its blood gorged plants was pristine and placid, and for good reason. There was now a pier that hadn't existed before, about fifteen meters down the shore, reaching about twenty meters into the plum colored ocean. There was a man sitting on the end of the pier, dangling his legs over the side, and throwing something into the water that made it churn and froth like a whirlpool was trying to develop enough of a pull to drag him down. 

Bob walked out towards the pier, ignoring the multicolored shells scuttling out of his path, and wasn't surprised that the man hadn't deigned to acknowledge him yet. This probably wasn't going to be pretty. 

His steps barely sounded on the pier as he walked towards him, trying to glare holes in his broad bronze back. Bob knew he'd finally gotten to him when he finally spoke. "Congratulations, Bob," Camaxtli said cheerfully. 

"For what?" He asked, even though he had already asked. 

"For breaking the unwritten law - killing one of our kind. And not even getting punished for it. Wicked." He gave him a sarcastic thumbs up over his shoulder, never turning around to look at him. Bob could see the currently male Camaxtli was throwing chunks of body parts into the purple water. They were chopped up so finely, in crabapple sized portions, it was impossible to say what species it was. The blood was mostly red, though. 

"Someone had to, and I was volunteered." He didn't even know why he responded; he felt no need to explain himself to him or anyone. "I'm surprised you didn't up for it, Cammy - this kind of bloodshed is right up your alley." 

Cammy shrugged. "I was waiting for Kumiho to kill them all first. The stuck up bastards." 

Bob sat down on the end of the dock beside him, the metal bucket of chum between them. Cammy appeared to be totally naked, save for ... oh christ, was that an orange speedo? Cammy was a completely amoral - and tasteless - prick if he was wearing a banana hammock. Maybe he just wanted to show off the hard, young body he had currently adopted as a form.His shoulder length black hair almost - but not quite - hid the bulging red blood sacs that made up for eyes in his face. "Tell me what you did to Jean Grey." 

Cammy didn't even pause in throwing chum to the creatures in the water below. They were not quite shark, but only because sharks just had the one mouth. "Who?" 

"Don't even try to bullshit me. One of the Humans who acted in your stead to help me corner Fenrir." 

He smiled in a sickly manner, keeping his gaze on the thrashing creatures in the ocean, being driven crazy by their own feeding frenzy. "Ah, a lesser. You know I have nothing to do with lessers." 

"Not normally, not now. But times change, don't they?" 

Cammy snorted in disdain. "You think you're the only one who can have a mortal avatar?" 

Bob grabbed Cammy by the throat, and let enough power bleed from his palm so Cammy could feel the sting. Bob's vision tinged blue as the excess energy oozed out his eyes. "You fucking son of a bitch. I had no choice - I'd take it back if I could." 

He knew Cammy was hurting - he saw it in the violent swirling of blood inside his eye sockets - but he laughed regardless. "You still have Agrona's energy in you - I can taste it. She chose to give it up, did she?" 

"She had already dispersed, only her core energy remained. Now tell me what you did before I break the unwritten law again." 

Cammy continued to chuckle, but Bob knew he was at least making him nervous. "I did nothing to the lesser, Bob. Why the fuck would I?" 

"Because you're a complete fucking dickhead." 

"Yes. But you don't realize your luck, do you? You chose an old soul, a mortal who sees eternity as the damnation that it is. But most mortals get corrupted by that taste of power - they want it. They want more. Did you really think all lessers are above that?" 

Bob let him go, but with great reluctance. He was correct about that, but he didn't think any of them would be in contact with Cammy long enough to get a true taste of his power. But perhaps, being telekinetic, something opened up between Jean and Camaxtli that he didn't anticipate. 

He had been unable to follow the trail left by the interloper for very long. The energy matrix was so unstable it broke up almost instantly - or it was covering its tracks, anticipating this move on his part. Which meant this thing, whatever it was, knew of his powers, and his connections to Logan. 

But the thing knew Logan. 

What Bob had been able to pick up from Logan was that the thing - in the midst of the memory jumble infused between it and Logan, which Logan's already chaotic mind was having some difficulty sifting through - possessed some of Jean's more recent memories. The why and how of it was unclear. But Logan's instinctive impression - "That was Jean." - might have been more correct than he allowed himself to believe. Something of Jean was within that thing - or it was Jean. One of the two. But how? 

Jean was powerful, untapped, but she had tapped those powers in a big ass way, and there was a taste of something other to that energy. Because of the almost instantaneous energy breakdown, Bob wasn't sure if the energy was demon, mutant, or god, or some bizarro combination of them all. 

But Bob instantly thought of Camaxtli, and it was hard to believe that was coincidence. 

Camaxtli was a god of fate, along with war, hunting, and several other things that often involved copious amounts of blood.  It was lives he was probably throwing to the creatures churning the water. Bob could see them, in the blood frenzy, sinking  their mouths into each other, ripping out hunks of thick blue skin and tainting the water with their own pinkish plasma. He knew if he pushed Cammy in, they wouldn't touch him - if Cammy would even touch the water. If only Humans knew what a pissant, petty trick walking on water was. There were many demons who could do that too. 

And Camaxtli was also considered the creator of fire. 

Fireball, or, as Bob thought of it, since seeing its vague shape in Logan's mind, fire bird.  It wasn't like Cammy to be so obvious, except he might be employing reverse psychology. He wasn't above that. There was little, in fact, that he was technically above. 

"You know, the Higher Realms are in chaos," Cammy said, seemingly apropos of nothing. "Kumiho wasn't the cause, merely a symptom." 

"Are you gonna tell me something I don't know?" 

"You should have let the disease run its course. Who knows how crazy things are gonna get now? It'll get ugly before it settles ... if it ever does." 

"Are you making a power play, Cam?" 

Cammy finally looked at him, casually flicking his long locks over his shoulder as he grinned at him in a manner he probably thought was rakish. But it had a sharp, cold edge to it; a knife made of ice. "Would I do that?" 

"If I find out you've done something to Jean - " 

He laughed, but it was contemptuous. "Think I hurt the crumpet, Bob, is that it? Do you think I took one of your superpowered pets and made her more than she is? I want nothing to do with lessers, especially ones who won't worship me like they should. But may I remind you, you requested that I take them under my aegis. If I left the door open, and she acted on it, it's hardly my fault, is it?" 

Bob glared at him. "I'm not the push over you seem to think I am." 

Cammy glared back at him, as best he could with eyes full of blood. "You're a hedonist, Bob. You are a pleasure god, in fact if not in name. Temptation is your middle name. Should you not foresee all the risks of laying out a banquet in front of a starving woman?" 

"What have you done?" He hissed, eyes narrowing in suspicion. He could simply be baiting him, or he could be telling the truth. The problem with gods was it was almost always the same thing. Truth was not only in the eye of the beholder here, but it could be altered at will by the person with the most power. 

Cammy didn't look away, but continued to throw away lives without even seeing which ones, or if the creatures got them all. The amethyst water now had white caps tainted pink with their blood as they tore each other apart in search of their precious morsels. "I've done nothing. Maybe you should ask the lesser what she's done." 

Bob was tempted to kill him right now. The surge of anger was almost foreign, and he wanted to ascribe it to Agrona's lingering energy, so he did, but he knew it probably wasn't that simple. Was anything ever that simple? 

Jean - or whatever Jean had succumbed to - was contacting Logan for a reason. She knew she was powerful, but not the bounds of that power. So she didn't contact Xavier for fear of hurting him, and did not contact Scott for fear of killing him ... but Logan could probably take it. Out of all of them, Logan could probably shake it off, no matter how bad it got. After all, he'd channeled a god before, right? 

Shit. 

But why didn't she contact him? Or was she trying, through Logan? He could help her, maybe ... but who said she wanted help? From what he picked up of the jumble of images Jean - or whatever - had thrown Logan's way, there was no sense of distress, no plea for help. She was trying to tell him something, but not asking to be saved. 

"Are you going to tell him?" Cammy asked, with a gloating smile. "Tell your avatar that, thanks to you, one of his little friends is gone?" 

"Don't you dare try and pass the buck, asshole." But it was his fault, wasn't it? He asked Cammy for help, and asked Jean - along with the others - to act as his agents. And he knew how deceptive Cammy could be - he just assumed he'd be able to cut him off at the pass. But not this time - not while he wasn't here. 

Fuck the Higher Realms! They never brought anything but pain and misery. At least the hell dimensions had truth in advertising going for them. The Higher Realms were different types of hell dimensions, just run by beings with a greater capacity for self-deception. 

Cammy turned his attention back to his pets, and for just a moment, Bob thought he saw a fire bright creature skim the water never the surface before descending into the jewel toned water. 

"You're going to force me to fight you, aren't you?" Bob asked, although it was hardly a question. Cammy, out of action for all this time, was going to take advantage of the chaos in the Higher Realms. He was going to make his move. It was as inevitable as the tide. 

"I don't want to," Cammy said, with a forced lightness. "Choose your side well, Bob. Otherwise, you're the first one I have to take down. You and Eris are the biggest threats - you understand." 

Bob stared at his profile - his sharp nose, his strong chin - and wondered, "What's protecting you now? If I try to kill you, what's to stop me?" 

"Besides myself? Well, I must admit I can't work a room like you, Bob, but I am not friendless. And you're hardly the type to kill in cold blood, are you?" 

"It's not cold blood." 

"No, but it's not sporting. And do you want to know what you'd lose if you killed me? Or can you put the clues together and take a guess?" 

Bob knew. The muscles of his jaw went rigid, and he stood up, fighting back the urge to kick the holy shit out of this son of a bitch. "You motherfucker." 

He chuckled, as if this was all great fun. "No, no, that was my cousin. Pay attention, man." 

Bob turned and walked down the pier. "This isn't over, Cammy." 

"No. I think it's just begun," he agreed, still sticking to his false, smarmy joviality. Like they were still friends. Like he hadn't all but declared war on him. 

And Bob feared that was true. 

***** 

The End  
(Or is it..?) ;^) 


End file.
